J\ 

BL  240 

.B4713 

1901 

Bettex, 

Fr 

ed 

eric. 

1837- 

1915. 

Science 

and 

Christianity 

SCIENCE  AND 
CHRISTIANITY 


By  F.  BETTEX 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN 


CINCINNATI:    JENNINGS   &    GRAHAM 
NEW    YORK:     EATON    &    MAINS 


COPYRIGHT,  I901,  BY 
THE  WESTERN  METH- 
ODIST BOOK  CONCHRK 


Author's  Preface 

THIS  book  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  learned  work 
for  learned  men.  I  address  myself  to  simple  souls 
thirsting  after  truth,  that  I  may  speak  to  them  of  great 
yet  simple  truths,  which  at  the  present  day  are  too 
often  stifled.  I  desire  to  express  my  profound  convic- 
tion that  the  living  and  personal  God  of  the  Bible  is 
the  necessary  center  of  a  rational  universe;  that  the 
Creator  and  his  creation  in  no  wise  contradict  one  an- 
other; and  that  all  the  discoveries  of  science  have  been, 
and  ever  will  be,  powerless  to  prove  that  his  Word  de- 
ceives mankind.  I  wish  to  make  clear  to  my  readers 
how  little  real  science  is  hidden  behind  the  fine  phrases 
and  sounding  words  of  the  infidel,  and  how  little  he 
himself  understands  of  the  material  creation  which  he 
affirms  to  be  the  only  one.  Finally,  I  wish  to  show  them 
that  the  Christian  and  Biblical  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse is  more  logical,  more  harmonious,  more  in  ac- 
cordance with  facts,  therefore  more  scientific  than  all 
philosophies,  all  systems,  materialistic  and  atheistic. 
In  conclusion  I  grant  to  every  one  the  liberty  of  opinion, 
which  I  claim  for  myself,  only  begging  my  readers  to 
examine  and  reflect  upon  my  words,  drawing  such  con- 
clusions as  they  may  think  right. 

3 


Contents 


CHAPTER  I 

FACE 

Progress?  -..---.-7 


CHAPTER  II 
Evolution  and  Modern  Science,      -        -        -        -  46 

CHAPTER  III 
Christians  and  Science, 107 

CHAPTER  IV 
Science, 189 

CHAPTER  V 
Materialism,       -------  260 


Science  and  Christianity 

CHAPTER   I 

Progress  ? 

IS  there  anything  which  better  realizes  our  idea  of 
stability,  of  motionless,  majestic  calm,  than  this 
earth  on  which  we  live?  If  we  take  our  stand  upon  some 
mountain-peak,  from  which  our  eye  ranges  over  a  wide 
prospect  of  fertile  plains,  dark  forests,  and  winding  riv- 
ers, or  gaze  from  some  lofty  clifif  upon  the  vast  ex- 
panse of  dark-blue  ocean,  does  not  this  earth,  "the 
nursing-mother  of  men,"  as  old  Homer  called  it,  appear 
to  us  firm,  steadfast,  immovable? 

And  almost  as  calm  and  tranquil  is  the  life  of  the 
greater  number  of  its  inhabitants.  Far  from  the  bustle 
and  the  noise  of  towns,  millions,  day  by  day,  till 
the  ground  plowed  by  their  forefathers,  live  in  houses 
which  they  built,  and  measure  the  flow  of  their  unevent- 
ful existence  only  by  the  recurrence  of  summer  and 
winter,  seed-time  and  harvest. 

But  in  reality,  and  seen  from  the  eternal  heights, 
calm  and  motionless,  are  the  last  words  to  be  applied  to 

7 


8  Science  and  Christianity 

the  earth.  This  dwelling-place  of  ours,  this  globe,  with 
its  continents  and  oceans,  is  flying,  rushing  on  unceas- 
ingly, with  its  attendant  moon,  through  infinite  space, 
whirling  round  the  mighty  sun,  which  also  is  ever  hast- 
ening onward,  whither  we  know  not.  In  the  time  which 
the  hand  of  the  clock  takes  to  move  forward  one  second, 
our  earth,  and  we  with  it,  have  flown  eighteen  miles 
further,  never  to  return  to  that  spot  in  the  universe 
which  we  occupied  a  second  ago. 

If  God,  who  alone  is  rest,  permitted  us  to  find  a 
fixed  point  in  space  from  which  we  could  view  the  earth, 
what  should  we  see?  There  would  appear  in  the  firma- 
ment a  tiny  star,  scarcely  visible  at  first,  growing  gradu- 
ally larger  and  brighter,  till  it  attained  the  size  of  the 
moon.  In  a  few  hours  it  would  occupy  half,  then  the 
whole  of  the  sky.  For  a  few  minutes  our  astonished 
and  confused  eyes  would  catch  glimpses  of  sunny  plains 
and  stormy  seas,  sandy  deserts  and  snowclad  mountains, 
lovely  forests  and  populous  cities,  alternating  in  giddy 
whirl;  and  the  earth  would  fly  past  us  with  a  velocity 
exceeding  that  of  the  cannon-ball.  Before  we  had  re- 
covered from  our  amazement  and  terror,  the  images 
would  fade,  continents  and  seas  become  once  more 
mere  dark  and  light  spots.  Then  the  whole  globe  would 
again  be  visible,  diminishing  gradually  in  size  with  in- 
creasing distance,  till  it  became  nothing  but  a  point 
of  light,  blown  onward  into  the  infinities  of  space  by 
the  breath  of  God.  And  it  would  have  been  a  world 
we  had  seen,  this  mass  of  matter,  with  its  infinite  va- 
riety of  organisms.  Its  sorrows  and  Its  joys,  its  crime 
and  Its  sin,  carrying  on  It  fifteen  hundred  millions  of 
immortal  souls,  made  in  Jehovah's  Image. 


Progress?  9 

As  the  earth  is  ever  hastening  through  the  abysses 
of  space,  so  hasten  the  human  dwellers  on  it  through 
the  abysses  of  time,  emerging  from  one  silent  eternity 
only  to  sink  into  another  as  mysterious.  Where  was 
the  human  race  ten  thousand  years  ago — a  second  on 
the  dial  of  the  heavens,  a  day  in  the  sun's  year  of  thirty 
million  earthly  years.  In  that  time  the  star  Vega  has 
hardly  advanced  one  half  of  the  moon's  diameter  in  its 
immeasurable  orbit.  And  where  will  the  human  race 
be  when  another  such  second  has  passed?  Short,  in- 
deed, is  its  existence;  and  every  piece  of  coal  which 
you  throw  upon  your  fire  is  a  part  of  trees  which  grew 
on  the  earth  before  cherubim  or  seraphim  knew  what 
a  man  was;  for  the  Elohim  had  not  yet  said,  "Let  us 
make  man  in  our  own  image." 

From  the  time  when  Adam,  with  astonishment  and 
rapture,  opened  his  eyes  on  the  wonders  of  Paradise, 
at  most  six  thousand  years  ago  (for  there  exists  no 
trace  of  man  which  can  be  proved  to  be  older  than 
that),  to  the  time  of  Christ,  only  seventy-four  genera- 
tions succeeded  one  another.  (St.  Luke  iii,  28-38.) 
Computing,  with  Herodotus,  a  generation  at  ^3-3 
years,  there  have  lived,  from  the  time  of  Christ  to  the 
present  day  (1901)  about  fifty-seven  generations  (1900 
=33.3x57.)  A  hundred  and  thirty-one — or,  in  round 
numbers,  a  hundred  and  forty  men — then,  our  ancestors, 
separate  you  and  me  from  Adam,  from  our  whole  genea- 
logical tree.  A  small  assemblage — a  moderately  large 
room  would  hold  them  all — yet  how  venerable  are  these 
representatives  of  the  human  race!  At  their  head  stand 
the  ninre  long-lived  giants,  who,  for  fifteen  hundred 
years,  from  the  days  of  Eden  to  the  Deluge,  filled  the 


lO  Science  and  Christianity 

earth  with  violence.  Among  the  rest  are  nomad  chiefs, 
legislators  and  founders  of  cities,  poets  and  sages,  also 
many  a  beggar  and  wretched  criminal,  godless  tyrant, 
honest  peasant,  industrious  artisan,  and  haughty 
knight.  How  interesting  it  would  be  to  have  their 
autobiographies,  comprising  a  biography  of  the  human 
race!  Patience!  Some  day,  in  the  wonders  of  eter- 
nity, we  shall  see  them  all,  and  everlasting  pictures  of 
their  lives  and  doings;  for  nothing  is  lost.  The  Egyp- 
tians of  old  said,  *'In  the  ether  are  contained  the  ar- 
chives of  the  gods.'* 

And  though  the  human  race  is,  comparatively 
speaking,  few  in  number,  and  but  of  yesterday,  yet 
what  an  overwhelming  mass  of  thoughts,  words,  and 
deeds  it  has  produced!  How  much  men  have  built 
and  destroyed,  planted  and  rooted  up,  spoken  and 
written,  suffered  and  enjoyed,  sighed,  wept,  laughed, 
prayed,  and  cursed!  Thrones  and  empires  have  arisen 
and  disappeared,  leaving  no  trace;  whole  civilizations 
and  races  have  been  born  and  died.  In  truth,  far  more 
imposing  than  the  rush  of  the  earth  through  space  is 
the  flying,  whirling  dance  of  spirits  through  the  history 
of  the  world.  Men  appear  upon  its  stage,  speak  their 
few  words,  and  make  their  exit.  Within  ten  years,  the 
time  a  boy  generally  spends  at  school,  Alexander  the 
Great  invades  Asia  with  his  mailed  legions;  breaks 
in  pieces  the  power  of  the  Persians;  destroys  the  proud 
city  of  Tyre;  builds  on  a  desert  Alexandria,  to  this  day 
a  seaport  of  importance;  conquers  and  bestows  king- 
doms, changing  the  face  of  the  earth  like  a  hurricane, 
and  then  disappears  in  the  flower  of  his  age;  and  his 
empire  sets  in  blood. 


Progress?  ii 

And  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  scarcely  longer  time, 
an  unknown  lieutenant  of  artillery  makes  his  appear- 
ance in  Corsica;  grows  in  power  like  a  giant;  overcomes 
his  enemies  in  a  hundred  battles;  marches  over  Europe 
with  one  hundred  thousand  warriors,  deposing  and 
setting  up  kings,  creating  a  new  order  of  things,  till 
one  day  he  also  disappears  from  the  scene,  to  die  in 
solitude  at  St.  Helena.  Where  are  now  the  kings  he 
made — Louis,  Murat,  Joseph,  Jerome — with  their  courts 
and  their  armies  of  officials?  They  have  vanished  hke 
a  dream.  Where  are  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who 
fought  at  Austerlitz  and  Leipsic,  whom  he  led  to  Rus- 
sia? Where  the  heavy  regiments  of  cuirassiers  whom 
he  saw  ride  to  death  at  Waterloo  in  the  vain  hope  of 
saving  his  tottering  power?  He  and  they  are  now 
shades  in  Sheol.  All  that  remains  of  them  on 
earth,  a  handful  of  dust!  And  most  of  us  saw,  but  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  a  mighty  German  Empire 
arise,  through  blood  and  iron;  and  how  many  of  those 
who  risked  their  lives  to  give  it  birth  have  already  gone 
down  into  the  grave!  A  few  years  more,  and  not  one 
will  be  alive  to  tell  the  tale.  According  to  the  old 
Scandinavian  mythology,  withered  leaves  are  falling 
continually  from  Ygdrasil — the  world-ash — while  thou- 
sands are  bursting  into  bud.  From  the  rising  of  the 
sun  to  his  going  down,  each  new  day  sees  thousands  of 
human  souls  pass  out  of  this  life,  to  be  carried  by  an- 
gels into  Abraham's  bosom,  or  to  become  the  prey 
of  Satan,  their  master  while  on  earth;  and  each  day 
thousands  of  child-souls  enter,  weeping,  upon  a  new 
state  of  existence. 

Looking  thus  at  the  life  of  each  individual,  as  well 


12  Science  and  Christianity 

as  that  of  the  race,  we  cry,  with  Bildad,  "For  we  are 
but  of  yesterday,  and  know  nothing,  because  our  days 
upon  earth  are  as  a  shadow.''     (Job.  viii,  9.) 

One  is  overcome  with  astonishment  at  the  pre- 
sumption of  this  creature — man — here  to-day,  and  gone 
to-morrow,  who  has  not  had  time  for  a  proper  exami- 
nation of  the  earth  he  Hves  on,  nor  the  beings  around 
him;  who  knows  next  to  nothing  of  the  myriads  of 
other  worlds  and  the  universe  in  general,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  heaven  and  hell;  yet  boldly,  and  in  the  name 
of  Science,  makes  such  statements  as:  Matter  is  eter- 
nal; The  forces  of  nature  are  eternal;  Observation 
teaches  from  all  time;  Such  a  thing  as  a  miracle  has 
never  taken  place;  It  is  an  utter  impossibility  that  the 
laws  of  nature  should  ever  vary;  Never  has  there  been 
a  revelation  of  the  Supreme  Being. 

It  is  as  if  ephemerae,  many  kinds  of  which  live  only 
an  hour  or  two,  were  to  assemble  on  the  broad  leaf  of 
a  water-lily  to  listen  with  attention  and  admiration  to 
an  orator  who  proves  to  their  satisfaction  that  there 
never  was  a  time  when  this  immense  expanse  of  water 
— their  pond — was  dry;  nor  when  the  vegetation  sur^ 
rounding  them  was  lifeless  and  withered.  Still  less 
had  this  present  dwelling-place  of  theirs  ever  been  cov- 
ered by  a  hard,  transparent  mass,  as  a  superstition  de- 
clared, explaining  the  fact  by  calling  it  solid  water. 
(Loud  laughter.) 

How  must  this  display  of  human  wisdom  appear  to 
the  sons  of  God,  who  "shouted  for  joy"  at  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world  (Job.  xxxviii,  7);  to  the  "watch- 
ers" and  "holy  ones"  whom  Daniel  saw  (Dan.  iv,  17; 
X,  5>  6);  to  the  cherubim  and  seraphim,  who  look  into 


Progress?  13 

the  past  and  the  future,  and  to  whom  the  highest 
analysis  of  a  Newton,  the  deepest  thoughts  of  a  Plato, 
are  but  the  babble  of  an  infant! 

The  earth,  we  know,  is  hastening  ever  onward 
through  space.  Whither  tends  this  everlasting  jour- 
ney? Whoever  has  lived  fifty  years  on  earth  is  many 
millions  of  miles  distant  from  that  spot  in  the  universe 
where  he  first  saw  the  light.  This  journey  must  have, 
in  common  with  all  that  exists,  a  purpose  and  a  destina- 
tion, though  they  are  hidden  from  us.  Is  Phoebus, 
our  sun,  with  his  planets,  which,  one  by  one,  shall  fall 
into  him,  moving  ever  downwards  in  gigantic  spirals 
to  the  abysmal  depths  where,  as  in  Dante's  lowest  hell, 
is  eternal  ice?  Or  is  he  wandering  aimlessly  and  end- 
lessly onward  through  infinite  space?  Or  is  he  circling 
upwards  to  empyrean  heights,  where  reigns  a  fuller 
life  and  forces  unknown  and  terrible?    We  do  not  know. 

Hidden  from  us,  too,  are  the  destinies  of  humanity. 
We  know  from  God's  Word  that  in  the  beginning  he 
created  heaven  and  earth,  and  that  in  the  end  he  will 
be  all  in  all.  We  do  not  know  in  accordance  with 
what  laws  empires  rise  and  fall,  why  one  race  is  al- 
ways predominant,  why  the  history  of  the  world  revolves 
in  eccentric  circles  round  Jerusalem,  its  true  center, 
from  Egypt  to  Assyria,  Syria,  and  Palestine,  passing 
then  to  Greece,  Rome,  and  Carthage,  at  present  taking 
in  England,  France,  Germany,  perhaps  to  turn,  in  the 
future,  once  more  to  the  East. 

We  do  not  know  why  humanity  overcrowds  certain 
countries,  nor  why  the  intellectual  life  of  the  race  cen- 
ters round  particular  points — London,  Paris,  Berlin. 
Everywhere  we  hear  complaints  of  overpopulation,  and 


14  Science  and  Christianity 

yet  there  are  lying  fallow  and  comparatively  uninhabited 
countries — like  Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  Egypt,  Northern 
Africa — which  were  once  the  most  populous,  richest, 
and  most  fertile  in  the  world.  In  ancient  times,  when 
a  country  became  overpopulated,  thousands  went  out 
under  the  leadership  of  a  man  and  a  hero,  and  founded 
a  new  home.  Where  is  there  now  a  leader  of  men 
who  would  cry  to  the  stagnating  elements  of  our  over- 
crowded countries — the  tramps,  the  loafers,  "the  sub- 
merged tenth,"  and  the  great  army  of  the  unem- 
ployed— "Follow  me!  We  will  seek  out  an  unoccu- 
pied corner  of  the  earth,  and  found  a  nation  for  our- 
selves!" We  lack  the  courage  and  the  strength  for 
that,  and  excuse  our  weakness  with  the  plea  of 
"changed  times,"  "altered  circumstances,"  "political 
difificulties  in  the  way,"  "want  of  capital,"  etc. 

Nor  can  we  understand  why  the  aboriginal  races — 
the  North  American  Indians,  the  natives  of  Australia 
and  Van  Diemen's  Land,  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand — 
pine  and  dwindle  and  disappear  from  the  earth  as  soon 
as   they  come  in   contact   with   our   "Christian   civili- 


Now,  let  us  ask  ourselves,  Does  the  history  of  the 
human  race  tell  of  progress,  of  retrogression,  or  of  a 
moving  ever  in  a  circle?  Who  shall  decide?  The  apos- 
tles of  progress  proclaim  loudly  that  we  are  greater, 
cleverer,  and  more  enlightened  than  our  fathers,  and 
carry  conviction  to  the  minds  of  thousands  who  know 
almost  nothing  of  the  past,  and  are,  therefore,  inca- 
pable of  forming  a  correct  judgment.    But  it  has  always 


Progress?  IJ 

been  so.  Each  century  has  beUeved  Itself  superior  to 
those  before  it.  To  many  thoughtful  minds  it  seems 
as  if  we  could  not  boast  of  much  real  progress.  With 
and  in  spite  of  railways  and  the  telegraph,  limited  lia- 
bility companies,  repeating  rifles,  and  torpedo-boats, 
wealth,  peace,  and  happiness  have  not  come  to  man- 
kind; nor  do  our  prospects  for  the  future  look  any  bet- 
ter in  that  respect.  In  spite  of  the  boasted  advance  in 
statecraft  and  the  art  of  government,  in  theology  and 
jurisprudence,  the  tide  of  anarchy  and  socialism  con- 
tinues to  rise,  threatening  to  swamp  society.  Thrones 
and  religions,  beliefs  and  laws,  are  tottering;  crime  and 
idleness  increase,  and  make  a  mock  of  God  and  man; 
medical  and  educational  science  are  continually  cele- 
brating new  triumphs,  yet  everywhere  one  hears  com- 
plaints of  the  increase  of  nerve  and  brain  disorders, 
short-sightedness  and  anemia,  of  the  growing  insub- 
ordination and  license  of  youth,  and  the  consequent 
increase  in  juvenile  crime.  And  in  this  century  of 
humanity  more  and  more  deadly  instruments  of  war- 
fare are  invented,  so  that  in  the  next  conflict  of  the 
nations  the  destruction  of  life  will  be  such  as  the  world 
has  never  seen.  In  short,  with  all  the  enlightenment 
and  freedom  from  superstition,  which  characterize  the 
age,  discontent  and  crime,  swindling  and  deceit,  hys- 
teria, insanity,  and  suicide  are  assuming  alarming  pro- 
portions.   What  a  contradiction! 

As  far  as  we  know,  the  Egyptians  and  Indians  four 
thousand  years  ago  were  as  healthy,  perhaps  more 
healthy  than  we  are,  as  clever  and  intellectual.  They 
were  as  we  are :  rich  or  poor,  happy  or  unhappy,  God- 
fearing or  godless,  at  the  same  time  logical  in  speech, 


i6  Science  and  Christianity 

wise  in  council,  brave  in  battle.     They  enjoyed  their 
food    and    drink,    had    beautiful    houses    and    suitable 
clothing,   and  besides  all  this  they  had  wise  laws,   a 
good  system  of  education,  and  lofty  notions  of  morality. 
They  bought  and  sold,  planted  and  built,  married  and 
were  given  in  marriage,  loved  and  hated,  lived  and  died 
like  us;  and  when  we  read  in  ancient  records  of  their 
doings  we  are  constrained  to  cry  with  the  Frenchman, 
''Tout  comme  cJiez  nous.''     The  Egyptian  mother  four 
thousand  years  ago  loved  her  son,  and  was  proud  of 
him,  like  the  aristocratic  lady  or  the  working-woman 
of  to-day.     Young  men  then  were  athletic,  active,  and 
lively,  and  old  men  talkative,  grave,  or  morose;  in  those 
days,   also,   lovers,   like   Sappho,   Tibullus,    Propertius, 
wrote  sentimental  poems  to  the  object  of  their  affec- 
tions; there  were  gourmands  and  egoists,  noble  and  vul- 
gar souls,   men   of  genius   and  fools,   wits  and  bores. 
They  ate  garum  where  we  eat  caviare;  they  drank  Cy- 
prus wine  while  we  drink  champagne.     If  we  go  to  the 
theater,  they  had  their  circus;  they  went  to  the  forum, 
and  we  go  to  the  exchange;  they  had  their  villas,  and 
also  occasionally  stood  in  awe  of  their  wives.     Where 
lies  the  difference  between  us?    "There  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun,"  says  Solomon.     ''The  thing  that  hath 
been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be;  and  that  which  is  done 
is  that  which  shall  be  done."    (Eccl.  i,  9.) 

For  all  forms  of  existence  and  all  phases  of  society 
are  but  varying  manifestations  of  the  human  soul,  eter- 
nal and  unchangeable;  and  fashions  only  pass  away  to 
reappear  in  course  of  time.  The  Egyptians,  too,  had 
their  elegant  furniture,  their  luxurious  bath-rooms, 
sunshades,  and  fishing  rods,  carved  chessmen  and  sofas; 


Progress?  17 

and  ladies  sipped  their  afternoon  tea,  or  its  equivalent, 
from  dainty  cups,  and  showed  each  other,  with  satis- 
faction and  more  or  less  envy,  their  rings  and  ear-rings, 
as  we  see  depicted  in  Egyptian  paintings. 

And  if  human  nature  has  remained  the  same,  so 
also  has  the  human  body.  The  oldest  known  skulls  of 
the  so-called  stone  age  are  exactly  like  those  of  the 
present  day.  The  noblest  of  them  might,  as  regards 
size  of  brain-cavity,  be  those  of  modern  savants,  while 
the  lowest  types  resemble  those  of  the  Papuans  and 
Bushmen  of  to-day.  The  statues  of  old  Greece  display 
a  perfection  and  harmony  of  form  far  above  the  average 
of  the  present  day;  and  the  fests  of  the  knights  of  the 
Middle  Ages  testify  to  a  degree  of  bodily  strength  and 
activity  which  we  could  not  outdo. 

As  regards  civilization,  the  great  mistake  Hes  in 
comparing  the  former  condition  of  Germans,  Gauls,  and 
Anglo-Saxons  with  their  present  state.  From  the  be- 
ginning the  various  grades  of  civilization  have  existed, 
not  in  succession,  but  simultaneously.  We  are  highly 
civilized;  but  there  are  savages  enough  in  Africa,  New 
Zealand,  and  Australia.  Centuries  before  the  Helvetii 
built  their  lake-dwellings,  which  existed  in  Europe  up 
till  A.  D.  750-1000,  the  palaces  of  Thebes  and  Memphis, 
Babylon  and  Nineveh,  were  the  seats  of  a  civilization, 
a  luxury  exceeding  anything  that  this  century  has  seen. 

It  is  true  that  our  skin-clad  European  ancestors 
lived  in  huts  no  better  than  those  of  the  present-day 
New  Zealander;  but  thousands  of  years  before  them  the 
Egyptians  had  erected  their  pyramids,  their  giant  tem- 
ples and  magnificent  palaces,  and  had  dug  Lake  Moeris 
and  a  Suez  Canal.     Nebuchadnezzar  had  built  Baby- 


1 8  Science  and  Christianity 

Ion  on  the  Euphrates,  which  formed  a  square  ten 
leagues  in  circuit.  In  the  middle  stood  the  temple  of 
Belus,  with  its  tower  sixteen  hundred  feet  high,  sur- 
mounted by  a  golden  statue  of  the  sun-god;  and  sur- 
rounding it  were  twelve  other  temples  dedicated  to 
various  gods.  Gorgeous  palaces  extended  for  several 
miles  along  the  river  bank;  and  this  magnificent  capital 
possessed,  too,  the  wonderful  "hanging  gardens,"  con- 
taining trees  and  plants  of  all  kinds,  watered  by  an  in- 
genious system  of  machinery.  Including  fields  for  the 
support  of  the  inhabitants  in  case  of  siege,  the  city  cov- 
ered an  area  more  than  twice  that  inclosed  by  the  forti- 
fications of  Paris  (J.  Menant);  and  the  whole  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  wall  four  hundred  feet  high  and  about  one 
hundred  feet  broad,  with  gates  of  bronze,  for  the  defense 
of  the  quays  on  the  Euphrates.  This  was  a  metropolis 
in  comparison  with  which  our  modern  capitals — Lon- 
don, Paris,  Berlin,  irregularly  built,  and  ending  in 
straggling  suburbs — cut  a  very  sorry  figure.  In  read- 
ing the  description  given  of  it  by  the  trustworthy  his- 
torian, Herodotus,  we  understand  Nebuchadnezzar's 
exclamation,  'Is  not  this  great  Babylon  which  I  have 
built?"     (Dan.  iv,  30.) 

It  is  true,  the  ancient  Gauls  lived  on  acorns  and 
horseflesh;  but  long  before  their  day.  King  Ahasuerus, 
who  ruled  over  a  hundred  and  twenty  provinces,  from 
India  to  Ethiopia,  gave  a  feast  to  all  his  princes  and 
nobles,  which  lasted  a  hundred  and  eighty  days.  "And 
when  these  days  were  expired,  the  king  made  a  feast 
to  all  the  people,  .  .  .  both  unto  great  and  small, 
seven  days,  in  the  court  of  the  garden  of  the  king's 
palace,  where  were  white,  green,  and  blue  hangings, 


Progress?  19 

fastened  with  cords  of  fine  linen  and  purple  to  silver 
rings  and  pillars  of  marble.  The  beds  were  of  gold  and 
silver,  upon  a  pavement  of  red  and  blue  and  white  and 
black  marble.  And  they  gave  them  drink  in  vessels  of 
gold  (the  vessels  being  diverse  one  from  another),  and 
royal  wine  in  abundance  .  .  .  according  to  every 
man's  pleasure.''  (Esther  i,  5-8.)  What  are  the  royal 
banquets  and  court-balls  of  our  day  to  a  festival  such 
as  this?  Take,  too,  the  temple-fortress-palaces  of  Sen- 
nacherib, Assurbanipal,  and  Sargon,  built  on  immense 
rocky  terraces,  with  their  seventy  halls,  their  huge  py- 
lons and  rows  of  gigantic  winged  bulls,  and  contrast 
them  with  the  barrack-like  residences  of  our  modern 
sovereigns.  The  mere  production  of  all  this  luxury 
presupposes  a  development  of  art  and  taste,  as  well 
as  of  trade  and  commerce  at  least  equal  to  ours. 

It  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  one  thousand  years  before 
Christ  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  where  now  stands  the 
capital  of  France,  were  covered  by  marshy  forests,  in- 
habited by  the  reindeer,  the  bear,  the  aurochs,  and  a 
few  savages,  armed  with  stone  axes;  but  one  hundred 
years  before  that  time  the  Chinese  astronomer,  Tshen- 
Kong,  had  calculated  that  the  inclination  of  the  ecHp- 
tic=23°  54'  2"  (at  present  2^,^  2f  22").  And  six 
hundred  years  earlier  still,  as  we  learn  from  the  tablets 
of  King  Sargon  of  Agaue,  there  was  at  Nineveh  a  pub- 
lic library,  where,  on  writing  down  name  and  address, 
the  librarian  supplied  scientific  works;  for  example, 
"Tables  and  Observations  on  the  Planet  Dilbat  or  Tstar 
(Venus)."  (Flammarion,  Les  etoiles,  p.  759,  and  J.  Me- 
nant,  Ninive  et  Babylone,  p.  141.) 

It  is  true  that  in  the  time  of  Hengist  and  Horsa 


20  Science  and  Christianity 

the  inhabitants  of  England,  the  ruling  sea  power  of  to- 
day, put  to  sea  in  carraghs  or  coracles  (boats  of  wicker- 
work,  covered  with  horse-skins);  but  seven  centuries 
earlier  proud  Tyre  was  queen  of  the  seas,  and  her  mer- 
chants dwelt  in  palaces  like  princes,  and  did  business 
with  millions,  like  any  American  Croesus  of  to-day. 
Their  magnificent  ships,  described  by  Ezekiel  (xxvii,  5-7), 
sailed  the  seas,  bringing  from  Spain  silver  in  such  abun- 
dance that  they  made  their  anchors  of  it,  tin  from  Corn- 
w^all,  amber  from  the  Baltic,  apes  and  peacocks  from 
India;  and  they  circumnavigated  Africa  under  Hanno, 
discovering  gorillas  twenty-five  centuries  before  the  first 
was  brought  to  Europe. 

To  turn  to  the  Greeks.  What  they  were  as  archi- 
tects, and  how  far  they  surpassed  us  in  sculpture,  is  very 
well  known.  What  they  accomplished  in  painting  and 
music  is  a  matter  of  recent  discovery.  On  the  tombs 
of  El  Farjum,  two  thousand  years  old,  portraits,  painted 
in  wax  and  certain  ochres,  have  been  found  in  a  state 
of  excellent  preservation.  Some  of  them — one  espe- 
cially, the  head  of  an  old  man  with  clear,  thoughtful 
eyes — are  not  unworthy  of  our  modern  portrait  paint- 
ers. Then,  of  the  oldest  piece  of  Greek  music,  the  Hymn 
to  Apollo,  dug  up  at  Delphi,  a  connoisseur  wrote,  after 
its  performance  at  Stuttgart:  ''The  effect  of  the  music 
is  striking  and  very  peculiar.  Its  solemn,  long-drawn 
tones,  which  remind  one  of  the  lamentations  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  service,  still  inspire  the  soul  to  devotion. 
The  hymn  gives  a  high  impression  of  the  artistic  merits 
of  Greek  music;  and  we  must  indorse  the  opinion  of 
Reimann,  who  says:  'The  full  choir,  in  full  strength, 
with  the  whole  orchestra  of  citherns  and  flutes,  the  splen- 


Progress?  21 

did  procession  before  the  temple  of  Delphi,  the  sanc- 
tuary itself  gleaming  in  gold,  must  have  produced  an 
effect  grand  in  the  extreme.'  The  Parisian  critics,  too, 
were  enchanted  with  the  music,  and  thought  it  resem- 
bled the  style  of  Wagner,  but  was  purer  and  more  beau- 
tiful." At  the  same  time  we  must  remember  that  it  is 
highly  improbable  that  we  have  happened,  in  these  por- 
traits and  the  hymn,  to  light  on  the  very  best  specimens 
of  the  art  of  that  time.  How  many  miserable  produc- 
tions of  the  nineteenth  century  may  not  one  day  be 
dug  up ! 

We  might  fill  volumes  with  a  description  of  the 
civilization  of  the  Indians  and  Egyptians,  Assyrians  and 
Persians,  Phoenicians  and  Carthaginians,  Greeks  and 
Romans,  their  splendor  and  their  power,  their  wise 
laws  and  ordinances,  their  architecture  and  their  horti- 
culture, their  palaces  and  temples,  their  theaters  and 
baths,  their  swift  galleys,  with  brazen  spurs,  their  well- 
disciplined  and  splendidly-armed  phalanxes  and  legions, 
the  treasures  of  a  Croesus,  the  luxury  of  a  Nero,  the 
banquets  of  a  Lucullus.  Books  might  be,  and  have 
been,  written  on  their  skill  in  the  construction  and  erec- 
tion of  giant  statues  of  bronze,  like  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes,  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  the  fragments 
of  which,  eight  hundred  and  eighty  years  after  its 
fall,  weighed  seventy-two  hundred  hundred-weight. 
Plutarch  tells  us  of  the  armor  of  Demetrius  Poliorcetes, 
which  withstood  at  sixty  paces  the  missiles  of  a  war 
machine.  We  read  of  ships,  like  the  Alexandria  of 
Hieros  II  (256  B.  C),  as  large  as  a  modern  ironclad, 
and  the  still  larger  one  of  Ptolemy  Philopator,  manned 
by  four  thousand  sailors,  of  which  Admiral  von  Henk 


22  Science  and  Christianity 

remarks :  ''The  ancients  appear  to  have  understood  bet- 
ter than  we  the  art  of  binding  together  such  masses 
of  wood."  And  the  man  who  constructed  this  giant 
was  able,  a  few  years  later,  to  draw  it  upon  land  for 
repairs — no  easy  task.  We  might  tell  of  their  skill  in 
weaving  stuffs  so  fine  that  an  Egyptian  lady  could  en- 
tirely wrap  herself  in  her  shawl,  or  draw  it  through  her 
ring;  of  the  manufacture  of  colors  so  excellent  that,  after 
four  thousand  years,  they  retain  their  pristine  freshness. 
If  they  had  dyed  with  our  aniline  colors,  they  would 
have  faded  long  ago.  In  the  goldsmith's  art,  too,  they 
attained  great  perfection,  as  we  may  see  by  the  jewelry 
of  the  Princesses  Hathor-Sut  and  Sent-Senbet,  of  the 
twelfth  dynasty,  lately  discovered  in  the  Pyramid  of 
Dochschur — necklets  of  gold,  amethysts,  and  turquoises, 
dainty  golden  shells,  miniature  furniture,  and  ornaments 
of  Cloisonne  enamel  of  wonderful  beauty,  works  of  which 
a  connoisseur  says:  ''They  are  unequaled  in  point  of 
technical  perfection  and  purity  of  taste  by  any  work  of 
this  present  age,  proud  as  it  is  of  its  technical  skill." 
All  attempts  made  in  Paris  to  imitate  a  certain  Etruscan 
brooch,  representing  bees  on  a  flower,  were  failures; 
and  this  people  understood  the  art  of  inserting  false 
teeth  by  means  of  gold  pegs,  as  is  to  be  seen  in  ancient 
skulls.  Another  thing  in  which  the  ancients  are  un- 
rivaled is  the  engraving  of  gems;  for  example,  the  beau- 
tiful Gemma  Augusta,  which  has  twelve  figures  in  the 
smallest  possible  space,  the  Achates  Tiberianus  in  Paris, 
and  many  others.  There  is  no  end  to  the  marvels  of 
ancient  skill.  The  till  recently  neglected  art  of  fish- 
culture  flourished  thousands  of  years  ago  in  China,  and 
also   in   Egypt,   where   the   artificial   Lake   of   Moeris 


Progress?  23 

brought  the  Pharaohs  large  revenues  from  the  fishing 
rights.  These  same  Pharaohs  had  their  enormous 
blocks  of  granite  and  porphyry  sawn  with  diamond  and 
sapphire  saws  three  thousand  years  before  the  use  of 
diamond  borers  in  the  construction  of  the  St.  Gothard 
Tunnel  was  hailed  as  a  new  triumph  of  civilization. 
And  who  has  not  heard  of  Solomon  and  all  his  glory? 

If  we  turn  to  the  New  World,  the  same  story  meets 
us.  Bernal  Diaz,  the  companion  in  arms  of  Cortez, 
describes  with  enthusiasm  the  wealth  and  luxury  of 
Mexico,  the  gold  plate,  the  royal  mantles,  embroidered 
with  humming-birds'  feathers,  and  how  the  Spaniards, 
at  the  sight  of  the  temples  and  palaces  covered  with 
sheets  of  gold  and  silver,  were  struck  with  astonishment 
and  admiration,  ''although,"  he  says,  "we  had  seen  in 
Spain,  Seville,  and  Granada,  the  pearl  of  the  world." 

One  must  be  either  very  ignorant  or  astonishingly 
self-satisfied  to  look  down  on  nations  which  attained 
such  a  pitch  of  civilization  simply  because  we  nowa- 
days travel  by  rail,  send  telegrams,  and  possess  sewing- 
machines  and  photograph-albums. 

But  what  has  become  of  these  mighty  empires  and 
their  civilization?  Where  once  stood  Tyre,  the  queen  of 
the  seas,  there  are  now  but  a  few  miserable  fisher-huts; 
where  the  palaces  of  Nebuchadnezzar  rose  in  splendor 
prowl  now  the  lion  and  the  jackal;  Mesopotamia,  Persia, 
and  the  neighboring  countries,  are,  for  the  most  part, 
desert;  wretched  Fellaheen  live  in  clay  huts  in  the 
shadow  of  the  mighty  temples  of  Egypt;  marshes  and 
sand  cover  the  site  of  the  once  proud  city  of  Carthage; 
and  Mexico  has  sunk  to  be  a  dirty,  third-rate  little  cap- 
ital.   Even  in  civilized  Italy,  the  district  once  inhabited 


24  Science  and  Christianity 

by  the  mighty  Etruscans,  with  their  huge  buildings  and 
their  wonderful  goldsmith's  work,  is  deserted  on  ac- 
count of  the  fever-bringing  Maremma. 

What  would  the  proud  Phoenician  merchants,  or  the 
princes  of  Carthage,  Nebuchadnezzar,  or  Cyrus,  or 
Alexander  the  Great  think  of  the  progress  of  mankind 
could  they  return  and  see  the  miserable  condition  of 
their  once-fiourishing  lands,  the  granaries  of  the  an- 
cient world? 

It  is  true  that  the  English,  the  French,  the  Germans, 
the  Russians — in  those  days  tmknown  barbarians — have 
become  civilized  nations;  but  we  must  not  forget  that 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  Chinese,  one  hundred 
and  eighty  millions  of  Hindoos,  and  over  one  hundred 
million  Africans,  as  well  as  Tartars  and  Arabs — in  short, 
the  half  of  the  human  race — have  remained  absolutely 
stationary.  In  face  of  these  facts  it  almost  seems  as  if 
the  amount  of  intellectual  power  which  God  has  dis- 
pensed to  mankind  were,  like  the  heat  force  which  the 
earth  annually  receives  from  the  sun,  constant  in  quan- 
tity, neither  increased  by  use  nor  diminished  by  disuse. 
This  gift  of  intellectual  power  has  passed,  in  the  world's 
history,  from  one  people  to  another,  and  each  has  con- 
centrated its  efiforts  on  the  end  which  appeared  to  it 
most  desirable,  always  with  more  or  less  success.  The 
Egyptians  aimed  at  founding  a  strong  hierarchical  and 
symbolical  state;  and  they  did  so.  Nebuchadnezzar 
desired  absolute  monarchy  in  all  its  splendor,  power, 
and  luxury,  and  he  succeeded  in  attaining  it.  (See  Dan. 
ii,  2^,  2%?)  The  Greeks  wished  to  express  in  everything 
and  everywhere  the  idea  of  beauty  and  harmony,  and 
they  realized  their  ideal.    The  object  of  the  Romans  was 


Progress?  25 

to  become  masters  of  the  world,  and  they  did  become 
so.  To  the  Hindoos  the  world  was  an  immense  mystic 
poem;  to  the  Egyptians  it  was  the  portico  of  eternity; 
to  the  Greeks,  the  temple  of  beauty;  to  the  Romans,  the 
city  and  camp  of  strength.  We  have  made  of  it  a  factory 
and  a  counting-house;  we  have  no  grand,  dominant  idea, 
but  we  have  our  politics  and  our  commercial  treaties, 
our  industries,  our  commerce,  and  our  natural  science. 
Professor  Huxley  says:  ''The  best  modern  civilizations 
appear  to  me  to  be  the  manifestation  of  a  state  of  hu- 
manity without  any  ideal  worthy  of  the  name,  and  not 
having  even  the  merit  of  stability."  (Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  October,  1896.) 

The  ancients  were  at  least  our  equals  in  the  attain- 
ment of  material  enjoyments  and  the  skill  with  which 
they  applied  matter  and  the  forces  of  nature  to  their 
purposes;  in  the  domain  of  intellect,  also,  they  were  as- 
suredly no  whit  behindhand.  Solon,  Plato,  or  Pythag- 
oras, Pindar  or  Sappho,  might  appear  to-day,  in  mod- 
ern clothes,  in  the  salons  of  London  or  Paris  without 
exciting  any  astonishment.  Their  behavior  would  be 
as  refined  as  ours.  After  they  had  had  time  to  look 
about  them  and  take  notes,  they  would  delight  us,  as 
they  did  their  contemporaries,  by  their  brilliant  conver- 
sation on  art  and  politics,  life  and  literature,  by  their 
originality,  their  wit,  and  humor.  With  little  trouble, 
Aristotle  would  feel  quite  at  home  with  our  modern 
science;  Hannibal,  whom  a  judge  like  Napoleon  con- 
sidered the  greatest  general  of  all  time,  would  soon 
familiarize  himself  with  modern  tactics;  Archimedes 
with  our  steam-engines  and  other  inventions;  and  they 
would  stand  out  intellectual  giants,  as  they  did  in  their 


26  Science  and  Christianity 

own  day.  Were  the  men  whose  lives  Plutarch  relates 
inferior  to  us  in  nobility  of  thought,  in  courage,  resolu- 
tion, and  steadfastness,  in  virtue  and  intellect?  The 
great  historian,  Ranke,  looks  upon  the  nations  as  large 
families,  which  grow  up,  flourish,  and  then  die  out  with- 
out their  particular  gifts  and  qualities  being  transmitted 
to  others.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  be- 
cause we  have  the  advantage  of  having  at  our  disposal 
an  accumulation  of  so  many  millions  of  facts,  amassed 
during  so  many  thousands  of  years,  we  are  necessarily 
wiser  than  our  ancestors.  The  value  of  knowledge  is 
measured  by  the  use  which  a  man  makes  of  it.  New- 
ton deduced  the  law  of  gravitation  and  its  consequences 
from  a  fact  so  simple  as  the  fall  of  an  apple.  What 
greater  discovery  could  the  most  learned  natural  philos- 
opher of  to-day  make  with  the  accumulated  wisdom  of 
centuries  on  which  to  draw? 

There  is  an  infallible  standard  by  which  to  measure 
the  intellectual  development  and  the  mental  level  of  a 
people,  and  that  is  its  language.  Is  our  speech  more 
poetical  than  that  of  Homer  and  Sakuntala,  more  phil- 
osophically logical  than  that  of  the  Phsedo,  more  dra- 
matic than  that  of  Sophocles,  more  concise  and  to  the 
point  than  that  of  the  Spartans?  What  modern  writing 
surpasses,  or  even  equals,  in  beauty  and  loftiness  of 
expression  the  Psalms  of  David,  or  the  Book  of  Job? 
And  we  can  not  get  away  from  the  fact  that  our  classical 
education,  and  modern  culture  in  general,  is  based  upon 
the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  the  wisdom  of  the 
ancients.  Schopenhauer  considers  that  ''the  gradual 
degradation  of  languages,  which  are  the  more  perfect 
the  older  they  are — Sanscrit,  for  example — is  a  weighty 


Progress?  27 

argument  against  the  theory  of  the  continual  progress 
of  mankind/'  Even  the  most  learned  philosophers  and 
thinkers  acknowledge  that  we  are  no  nearer  a  solution 
of  the  great  problems  of  life,  the  great  riddles  of  the 
universe,  than  the  sages  of  old.  The  great  astronomer, 
Proctor,  concludes  his  book  with  these  words :  "I  would 
ask,  in  conclusion,  whether  we  have  now  better  reason 
than  the  astronomers  had  of  old  time  to  consider  the 
mysteries  of  the  universe  as  fully  revealed  to  us  and  in- 
terpreted. We  know  much  that  was  unknown  until  of 
late,  and  we  have  been  able  to  understand  some  matters 
which  once  seemed  inexplicable;  but  the  star-depths  as 
we  see  them  now  are  even  more  mysterious,  as  well  as  far 
more  wonderful,  than  as  displayed  to  the  astronomers 
of  old."    (Our  Place  Amongst  Infinities,  p.  2^^.) 

Dubois-Reymond  says:  ''We  are  as  much  puzzled 
by  the  question,  'What  is  matter?'  as  the  Tonic  physiolo- 
gists of  old.  The  nature  of  the  material  and  of  the 
spiritual  world  has  become  no  less  incomprehensible 
since  Plato  and  Aristotle,  since  Epicurus,  who  knew  the 
immutability  of  force  and  of  matter."  And  elsewhere: 
"Mankind  is  no  nearer  understanding  force  and  matter, 
nor  the  deduction  of  spiritual  phenomena  from  material 
conditions  than  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  in  spite 
of  all  the  discoveries  made  in  natural  science.  It  never 
will  get  any  nearer."  (Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturer- 
kennens.) 

But  we  might  have  spared  ourselves  this  discussion, 
and  have  simply  put  the  question.  Is  mankind  happier 
now  than  formerly?  For  increase  of  happiness  is  surely 
true  progress.  Different  as  the  opinions  and  desires  of 
men  may  be,  on  this  point  they  all  agree;  their  dearest 


28  Science  and  Christianity 

wish  is  to  gain  happiness,  either  by  means  of  art  or  sci- 
ence, through  honor  or  power,  through  riches  or  volun- 
tary poverty.  "No,  so-called  progress  has  not  brought 
us  happiness,"  answer  the  leaders  of  human  thought,  as 
well  as  the  millions  who,  discontented  with  their  lot, 
aim  at  overthrowing  the  existing  order  of  things,  and 
founding  a  new  state  of  society. 

Pessimism  is  the  distinguishing  feature  of  present- 
day  philosophy.  Kant  calls  life  "a  time  of  trial  to  which 
the  majority  succumb,  and  which  even  the  best  do  not 
enjoy."  "Fools,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "take  the  world 
as  an  intense  reality,  and  beheve  that  the  object  of  life 
is  earthly  happiness,  which  is,  after  all,  but  an  illusive, 
disappointing,  miserable,  perishable  thing,  not  to  be  bet- 
tered by  government  or  legislation,  by  steam-engines  or 
telegraphs." 

Another  German  philosopher,  von  Hartmann,  sees 
the  only  prospect  of  salvation  for  the  world  in  a  general 
conviction  of  the  folly  of  wishing  and  the  misery  of 
existence,  leading  man  to  take  the  matter  into  his  own 
hands  and  obtain  peace  and  freedom  from  pain  in  the 
only  way  possible.  Suicide  is  then  to  be  set  up  as 
the  goal  of  life!  Can  that  be  called  progress  which 
drives  humanity  and  its  own  apostl'es  to  such  a  cry 
of  despair? 

It  is  the  apostles  of  progress  among  the  naturalists 
who  contradict  each  other  most  strongly.  On  the  one 
side  they  preach  the  final  triumph  of  light  and  science; 
on  the  other  they  teach  that  the  earth,  as  well  as  the 
solar  system — in  fact,  the  whole  universe — is  moving 
onward  to  a  death  from  cold;  for  thousands  of  years 
before    that    freezing    humanity    will    gradually    work 


Progress?  29 

towards  the  tropics,  and  finally  eke  out  there  a  miserable 
existence.  Thus  Spiller  writes,  "There  is  practically  no 
doubt  that  the  last  men  will  live  as  equatorial  Eskimos." 
The  Darwinian  Clemenceau  prophesies,  as  we  shall  see 
later  on,  in  virtue  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  the  end 
of  humanity  *'in  the  greatest  misery."  What  an  idea  of 
progress,  what  an  end  to  all  light  and  knowledge ! 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  all  religions  are  at  one 
in  the  belief  that  the  advance  of  mankind  is  not  towards 
something  better.  All  lay  stress  not  only  on  the  fact 
that  man  has  fallen  from  an  original  state  of  blessedness, 
but  also  teach  that  he  continues  to  decline.  Thus  the 
Greek  and  Roman  mythologies  told  of  a  golden,  a  silver, 
a  copper,  and  an  iron  age.  So,  too,  the  Indian  religions 
taught  in  the  time  of  Manu  a  decline  of  the  world  from 
its  beginning  through  its  four  ages,  of  which  the  present, 
dating  from  the  Deluge,  is  called  Kali-Juga,  the  Age  of 
Strife.  In  the  same  way  the  Bible  gives  in  the  dream 
of  Nebuchadnezzar  a  picture  of  the  course  of  the  world's 
history  in  the  image  with  golden  head,  silver  breast, 
brass  body,  and  legs  and  feet  of  iron  and  clay.  And  all 
agree  that  after  the  final  catastrophe  "the  Father  of  the 
fathers  of  the  gods,"  as  the  Egyptians  call  the  Great 
Unknown,  will  have  pity  on  his  creatures,  and  will  create 
a  new  world  of  light  and  happiness. 

As  far  as  mere  civilization  is  concerned,  we  see  from 
the  history  of  the  world  that  the  amount  of  intelligence 
with  which  the  successive  leading  nations  have  pursued 
their  various  aims — the  one,  luxury;  the  other,  power; 
the  one,  art;  the  other,  trade  and  commerce — has  been 
always  almost  constant  in  quantity.  Since  the  Deluge 
there  has  always  been,  somewhere  on  the  earth,  great 


30  Science  and  Christianity 

civilization,  and  never  has  the  whole  of  mankind  been 
civilized. 

*  *  * 

But  what  of  the  primitive  men  of  the  Stone  and 
Bronze  Age? 

On  this  point  a  slow  but  certain  reaction  is  setting 
in.  The  thousands  of  years  during  which  it  never  oc- 
curred to  palaeolithic  man  to  put  a  handle  to  a  flint  in 
order  to  make  an  ax  of  it,  are  the  product  of  the  imagi- 
nation of  certain  savants.  Such  an  assumption  is  out 
of  all  proportion  to  what  we  know  of  human  develop- 
ment. The  historic  age  as  regards  Europe  reaches  back 
at  most  three  thousand  years,  and  this  period  of  time 
carries  us  back,  as  can  be  proved,  to  the  Bronze,  if  not 
to  the  Stone  Age.  That  man  had  remained  for  at  least 
fifty  thousand  years  previous  completely  stationary,  is 
very  hard  to  believe.  In  that  case  this  prehistoric  man 
must  have  been  far  less  capable  of  evolution  than  the 
dog  or  the  rose;  in  fact,  a  being  quite  different  from  the 
man  of  to-day.  It  is  as  if  a  baby  after  remaining  fifty 
years  quite  undeveloped  were  suddenly  to  begin  to  walk 
and  talk.  In  other  respects,  too,  these  assumptions  are 
not  tenable.  We  have  learned  that  many  stages  of  civil- 
ization which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as 
successive  were  really  simultaneous;  civilized  and  un- 
civilized races  have  always  existed  side  by  side.  Even 
the  learned  historian  of  materialism,  Albert  Lange,  says : 
''The  theory  that  the  periods  of  the  mammoth,  the  primi- 
tive bear  and  the  reindeer  lasted  for  several  thousand 
years  in  succession  is  no  longer  considered  tenable.  All 
these  animals  lived  at  the  same  time,  and  the  state  of 


Progress?  31 

their  bones  gives  no  indication  of  their  age."  And  he 
ends  by  confessing  impartially:  "When  the  geologist, 
Fraas,  comes  down  to  periods  embraced  by  the  six 
thousand  years  of  Biblical  chronology,  we  have  no  proofs 
with  which  to  oppose  him."  (Geschichte  des  Material- 
ismus.) 

Ranke,  in  his  history  of  man,  says,  "We  have  not 
yet  found  traces  of  Tertiary  man,"  and  elsewhere,  "The 
oldest  traces  of  humanity  do  not  reach  further  back  than 
the  Deluge."  (Der  Mensch.  Leipzig,  1887.)  Boyd- 
Dawkins  goes  still  further,  and  proves  that  in  many  cases 
primitive  man  was  not  contemporary  with  the  animals 
whose  bones  are  found  in  the  caves  he  inhabited,  but 
that  he  lived  at  a  later  period;  even  at  the  present  day, 
not  only  in  the  interior  of  Africa,  but  also  in  France, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  hundreds  of  human  beings 
lead  a  miserable  existence  in  caves.  As  for  the  flints, 
Robert  considers  those  of  the  most  celebrated  station 
of  the  Stone  Age,  Grand  Pressigny,  to  be  the  remains 
of  a  factory  of  musket-flints  of  the  last  century;  and 
even  the  well-known  geologist,  Elie  de  Beaumont,  shares 
this  opinion.  Be  it  right  or  wrong,  it  shows  clearly  how 
impossible  it  is  to  determine  the  age  of  these  stone 
implements  with  any  exactitude,  and  how  purely  suppo- 
sititious these  periods  are.  Marlot  reckoned  eight  thou- 
sand years  for  the  Bronze  and  Stone  Age  together, 
while  the  investigations  of  Troyon,  the  great  authority 
on  the  lake  dwellings,  do  not  take  him  farther  back  than 
1500  B.  C,  and  Professor  Fraas  dates  these  settlements 
of  Germanic  tribes  on  the  lakes  at  600-800  B.  C,  and 
adds:  "Nothing  compels  us  to  place  the  beginnings  of 
the  lake-dwellings  prior  to  1000  B.  C."    (Vor  der  Sint- 


32  Science  and  Christianity 

flut.)  They  are  then  coeval  with  Solomon's  Temple, 
and  centuries  later  than  the  height  of  Egyptian  culture ! 
Some  authorities  make  the  lake-dwellings  exist  up  to  the 
time  of  Charlemagne.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  so-called 
Stone  Age,  and  probably  also  the  reindeer  period,  lasted 
in  some  parts  of  Gaul  to  the  time  of  Caesar.  It  has  ex- 
isted with  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  into  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  peasants  of  South  Tyrol  use  the  very  same 
flints  as  the  men  of  the  Stone  Age  to  make  a  light,  and 
the  fishermen  on  Lake  Zurich  use  the  same  stone  rings 
as  the  lake-dwellers  in  the  time  of  Christ,  only,  as  Tro- 
yon  told  the  author,  those  of  the  present  day  are  not  so 
well  made!  Another  proof,  by  the  way,  that  imperfect 
implements  and  products  are  not  necessarily  of  older 
date  than  the  better  ones.  What  conclusions  will  the 
archaeologists  of  the  future  draw  from  these  facts,  and 
how  many  centuries  will  they  intercalate  between  these 
peasants  and  fishermen  and  the  highly-refined  visitors 
to  Meran  and  wealthy  inhabitants  of  Zurich? 

How  valueless  are  the  conclusions  drawn  from  cer- 
tain skulls  is  shown  by  what  follows.  The  celebrated 
skull  found  at  Engis  in  1831  was  pronounced  by  Pro- 
fessor Vogt  similar  to  that  of  an  ape;  Lyell  believes  it 
to  be  that  of  a  Caucasian;  Professor  Huxley  considers 
it  so  beautiful  that  it  might  have  belonged  to  a  philos- 
opher; the  Petersburg  anatomist,  Theodor  Landzert, 
compares  it  to  the  classic  skulls  of  the  handsome  Greeks ! 
(Ranke,  Der  Mensch,  page  443.)  Virchow  writes  of 
the  famous  Neander  skull,  which  was  supposed  to  be 
the  type  of  antediluvian,  ape-like  man :  ''Even  if  we 
take  it  as  typical  of  a  race,  which  I  consider  inadmissible, 
we  can  not  find  in  it  any  approach  to  the  skull  of  an 


Progress?  33 

ape."  Dr.  Pruner  Bey  measured  its  capacity,  and  found 
it  greater  than  the  present  average;  he  considers  it  that 
of  a  Celt  of  historic  times;  Professor  Davies  believes  it 
to  be  that  of  an  idiot  who  probably  lost  his  life  by  fall- 
ing down  the  chasm  in  modern  times !  Professor  Fraas, 
himself  an  authority,  is  right  when  he  ridicules  these 
results  of  science,  and  adds:  ''These  diverse  views  of 
men  of  science  afford  the  best  proof  that  we  know  next 
to  nothing  about  these  primitive  men."  (Vor  der  Sint- 
flut,  page  478.)  Skulls  no  more  bear  a  date  than  other 
bones  or  stone  axes,  and  in  all  ages  there  have  been 
round  and  long-shaped  skulls,  clever  and  stupid  heads, 
and  deformities  and  idiots,  too!  "We  can  positively 
maintain,"  says  Dr.  Pruner  Bey,  ''that  there  is  no  type 
of  skull  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  cave  of  Solutre." 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  construct  theories  of  racial 
peculiarities  and  differences  from  the  shape  of  skulls. 
Quite  recently  two  anthropologists,  Ammon  and  Posch- 
inger,  had  a  serious  dispute  as  to  whether  the  skull  of 
Bismarck  were  long  or  round,  whether  he  were  dolicho- 
cephalous  or  brachycephalous. 

But  if  primitive  man  was  a  contemporary  of  the  cave- 
bear  and  the  mammoth,  as  is  supposed  by  Figuier  and 
others  from  the  bones  and  from  a  drawing  of  the  latter 
scratched  on  ivory  which  was  found  in  the  cave  of 
Pruniquel,  that  is  no  proof  that  they  are  earlier  than  the 
Biblical  chronology.  It  is  rather  highly  probable,  and 
we  have  no  proof  to  the  contrary,  that  the  mammoths 
still  preserved  with  skin,  hair,  and  blood  frozen  in  their 
arteries  in  the  ice  of  the  tundras  of  the  Tamir,  the  Lena, 
and  the  Petchora,  and  on  whose  flesh  Tunguses  and 
Jacutes  still  feed  their  sledge-dogs,  whose  tusks,  too, 
3 


34  Science  and  Christianity 

are  exported  in  large  quantities  to  London,  are  con- 
temporaneous with  the  Deluge,  that  they  perished,  in 
fact,  during  the  Deluge.  According  to  the  Bible,  then, 
primitive  man  lived  side  by  side  with  these  animals  for 
fifteen  centuries,  a  period  which  amply  covers  the  Stone 
and  Bronze  Ages  all  over  the  earth. 

The  idea  that  these  prehistoric  men  in  some  degree 
resembled  monkeys  has  been  shown  to  be  false.  Figuier 
writes  of  the  Mentone  skeleton,  which  is  held  to  be  the 
very  oldest  of  human  remains :  "The  similarity  of  its 
skull  to  the  finest  of  to-day  is  surprising.  The  facial 
angle  does  not  differ  in  any  way  from  the  type  of  the 
most  intelligent  races.  What  becomes,  then,  we  ask,  of 
the  supposed  descent  from  the  ape?"  (L'homme  prim- 
itif,  page  119.) 

These  antediluvian  men  were,  on  the  contrary,  pow- 
erful natures,  full  of  indomitable  strength,  as  they  are 
described  in  the  Song  of  Lamech  and  Genesis  v,  and 
as  the  most  ancient  skulls  and  skeletons  show;  for  ex- 
ample, those  of  Cromagnon,  of  which  Broca  says  that  in 
the  lower  half  they  display  an  almost  bestial  force  and 
greed,  but  in  forehead  and  cranium  the  highest  and 
finest  formation  with  great  brain  capacity.  These  are 
the  long-lived  giants  who,  with  their  combats  against 
lions  and  monsters,  against  each  other,  and  in  the  case 
of  the  Titans  against  the  gods,  figure  in  all  mythologies 
as  demigods,  like  Hercules,  Theseus,  Odin,  Thor;  or 
even  as  gods,  like  the  grandson  of  Cain,  Tubal-cain,  an 
instructor  of  every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron  (Gen.  iv, 
22),  whose  name  is  preserved  in  the  Roman  Vulcan  or 
Vulcain.  This  generation  of  giants,  as  the  Bible  relates, 
built  towns,  worked  in  all  kinds  of  metal,  and  invented 


Progress?  35 

musical  instruments;  they  filled  the  earth  with  violence 
(Gen.  vi,  13),  so  that  the  inferior  races  fled  before  them 
to  distant  countries,  and  lived  in  a  wild  state  in  caverns. 
It  is  almost  certain  that  the  bones  of  the  few  hundred 
cave-dwellers  of  Cromagnon,  Aurignac,  and  Solutre  do 
not  represent  the  whole  population  of  the  Gaul  of  their 
day,  but  only  exceptional  cases;  for  Professor  Fraas  be- 
lieves that  these  hunting  tribes  were  accustomed  to  bury 
their  dead.  Those  strong  ones  who  as  Kebirim,  Cabires, 
received  divine  honors  in  the  East  and  later  on  in  Rome, 
were  capable  of  building  Cyclopean  cities,  an  ark  of 
more  tons'  burden  than  our  iron-clads,  and,  after  the 
Deluge,  the  Tower  of  Babel;  why,  then,  could  they  not 
have  at  once  constructed  pyramids  and  temples  in  Egypt 
without  requiring  centuries  for  their  gradual  civiliza- 
tion? Humanity  has  never  lacked  an  intellectual  head; 
there  has  always  been  a  nation  to  take  the  leading  place. 
We  have  no  reason  either  to  flatter  ourselves  that 
the  whole  of  mankind  will  ever  be  civilized.  In  the 
course  of  the  last  fifty  years  we  have  seen  ourselves 
forced  to  go  back  from  the  idea  that  savage  tribes  are  to 
be  made  into  cultured  nations  by  means  of  laws  and 
regulations,  European  clothes,  customs,  and  education; 
on  the  contrary,  we  have  seen  how  some  have  even  died 
out  in  consequence.  On  the  other  hand,  anarchists, 
nihilists,  communists,  and  the  thousands  who  live  in 
London  and  other  great  cities  under  conditions  worse 
than  that  of  savages,  mere  human  rats,  all  these  bear 
testimony  to  the  powerlessness  of  the  civilizing  influence 
of  our  day.  Then,  too,  the  effect  of  the  social  revolution 
prophesied  and  hoped  for  by  the  anarchists  will  be  any- 
thing but  civilizing. 


36  Science  and  Christianity 

As  the  guiding  and  thinking  part  of  man,  the  head, 
is  about  a  tenth  of  the  body,  so  a  similar  proportion  of 
mankind  seems  to  be  destined  to  be  the  leaders  of  its 
thought,  and  a  change  in  this  proportion  would  be  as 
fatal  as  if  the  brain  were  developed  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  organs.  It  will  probably  always  remain  so;  but 
to  pity  the  elementary  portion  of  mankind  as  if  a  wrong 
had  been  done  them  is  as  unreasonable  as  to  pity  foot 
or  arm  for  not  being  brain  or  eye.  Happiness  lies 
neither  in  civiHzation  nor  in  so-called  culture,  but  in 
morality  and  the  fear  of  God.  This  we  see  exemplified 
in  the  inhabitants  of  the  peaceful  valleys  of  Switzerland, 
the  Tyrol,  and  Norway,  as  compared  with  the  devotees 
of  Fashion,  the  plutocrats  and  bureaucrats  of  our  cap- 
itals. A  simple  stone-mason  may  be  as  happy  as  a 
Michael  Angelo;  in  fact,  has  a  better  chance  of  being 
so, — as  Bismarck  pithily  observed,  he  had  known  many 
a  contented  forester,  but  never  a  contented  minister  or 
politician.  And  as  regards  eternal  blessedness,  it  de- 
pends neither  on  earthly  position  nor  on  culture,  and 
is  promised  rather  to  the  poor  than  to  the  rich  and  great 
of  this  world. 


In  the  question  of  progress,  many  date  it  from  the 
advent  of  Christianity,  and  attribute  to  our  religion  a 
powerful,  civilizing  mission.  We  do  not  believe  in  any 
such  mission.  If  Christ's  object  had  been  to  civilize  the 
world,  how  easy  it  would  have  been  for  him  to  have 
appeared  on  earth  as  the  son  of  a  Roman  emperor  (that 
need  not  have  prevented  his  death  on  the  cross) !  As 
Sovereign  of  the  world  he  could  have  introduced  a  new 


Progress?  37 

eWL  of  Christian  civilization  and  intellectual  progress, 
with  a  perfect  form  of  government,  truly  humane  laws 
and  abolition  of  slavery;  an  enlightened  patronage  of  art 
and  science;  the  promotion  of  trade,  commerce,  and  in- 
dustry. A  few  words  would  have  revealed  the  knowl- 
edge of  steam,  electricity,  and  perhaps  other  forces  yet 
unknown.  He  could  have  solved  all  social  problems; 
he  eould  have  put  an  end  to  all  bodily  suffering  by  some 
rational  remedy,  seconded  by  miraculous  agency,  by  the 
constant  supply  of  food-products. 

All  this  lay  in  his  power  "for  whom  are  all  things 
and  by  whom  are  all  things."  (Heb.  ii,  lo.)  But  how 
different  from  the  reality!  Christ  ignores  completely 
the  arts  and  sciences,  politics  and  legislation,  and  refuses 
to  interfere  even  in  a  matter  of  right,  with  the  words, 
"Man,  who  made  me  a  judge  over  you?"  And  when  he 
stands  before  the  representative  of  the  most  powerful 
empire  of  the  world,  instead  of  pointing  out  to  him  the 
enormous  advantages  of  a  civilizing  Christianity,  he  an- 
swers briefly,  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 

"What  doth  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  his  own  soul?"  If  a  man  is  converted 
he  is  civilized  enough;  if  he  is  not  converted,  neither 
education  nor  civilization  is  of  any  use.  That  is  Christ's 
standpoint.  Not  civilization,  but  everlasting  life,  is  what 
Christ  brought  to  man;  but  his  gift  was  refused.  A 
little  consideration  will  show  that  a  nation  composed 
only  of  true  Christians  would  not  have  made  any  great 
advance  in  art  and  commerce,  in  trade  and  industry. 
Content  with  a  modest  competence,  looking  upon  things 
eternal  as  their  chief  care,  and  things  temporal  as  only 
of  secondary  importance,  such  a  community  would  nc^ 


38  Science  and  Christianity 

have  troubled  about  the  invention  of  railways,  the  tele- 
graph, the  telephone,  etc.,  as  we  may  see  in  the  case  of 
the  Moravian  brethren,  the  Puritans,  the  Huguenots, 
Geneva  under  Calvin.  The  Christian  says  like  his  Mas- 
ter, ''My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 

Those  who,  even  while  denying  the  Divinity  of  our 
Lord,  yet  regard  our  present  civilization,  our  art  and 
science,  as  the  product  of  Christianity,  pay  it  a  very  poor 
compliment;  for  in  that  case  Christian  art  and  Christian 
science,  the  culture  of  to-day,  ought  a  priori  to  stand  as 
high  above  all  that  paganism  has  produced  as  Christian 
truth  does  above  heathen  error.  Every  one  must  ad- 
mit, however,  that  this  is  not  the  case.  The  Christian 
churches,  even  St.  Peter's  and  Cologne  Cathedral,  do 
not  surpass  the  Parthenon,  the  Temple  of  Diana  at 
Ephesus,  that  of  Karnak,  or  the  splendid  temples  of 
India,  as  Christianity  does  heathen  religions;  Raphael's 
and  Murillo's  Madonnas  as  works  of  art  are  not  superior 
to  the  Medici  Venus  or  the  Apollo  Belvedere,  nor 
Michael  Angelo's  Moses  to  the  Zeus  of  Phidias.  As  for 
the  art  of  Protestantism,  as  exhibited  in  the  stained  glass, 
carved  pulpits,  and  embroidered  altar-cloths  of  our 
churches,  it  is  far  behind  Catholic  art,  so  that  if  we  push 
this  argument  to  its  logical  conclusion  we  shall  be  forced 
to  confess  that  the  former  is  inferior  in  Christian  inspira- 
tion and  truth. 

Art  and  Nature  are  certainly  divine  in  their  origin, 
and  the  latter  contains  all  the  laws  of  the  former.  But 
we  must  not  confuse  Divine  and  Christian.  The  uni- 
verse, the  great  revelation  of  God  to  all  mankind,  is 
divine;  the  special  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  the  individual  soul  is  Christian.    As  there 


Progress?  39 

is  no  such  thing  as  Christian  nature,  Christian  art  is 
simply  an  art  which  devotes  itself  to  the  service  of  re- 
ligion. "The  celestial  world  painted  in  earthly  colors! 
I  despise  such  art/'  says  a  German  writer.  And  the 
realistic  painter,  Courbet,  is  not  wrong  when  he  says: 
"Let  no  artist  paint  me  an  angel  nor  a  portrait  of  Christ ! 
He  has  never  seen  either !" 

It  is  not  chance,  but  the  purpose  of  God  that  while 
portraits,  statues,  and  coins  of  the  rulers  of  Nineveh, 
Babylon,  and  Rome,  and  even  the  mummies  of  certain 
Pharaohs,  have  come  down  to  us,  we  do  not  possess 
any  pictorial  representation  of  any  apostle,  or  prophet, 
or  of  our  Lord  himself.  P'or  this  reason  any  attempt  to 
illustrate  the  Bible  is  open  to  objection.  A  natural  and 
realistic  illustration,  if  such  were  possible,  would  draw 
the  mind  from  the  spirit  of  the  words  to  fix  it  upon  eter- 
nals; an  idealized  picture  is  untrue.  God  knows  why 
he  did  not  give  us  an  illustrated  Bible;  he  could  easily 
have  inspired  one  or  more  Bezaleels  for  the  task.  The 
whole  Bible  tells  of  a  release  from  the  bonds  of  matter 
and  earthly  forms,  from  the  commandment,  "Thou  shalt 
not  make  to  thyself  any  graven  image,"  and  the  proph- 
ecy, "He  hath  no  form  nor  comeHness,"  to  the  words  of 
Christ,  "God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,'*  and  the  utterance  of 
St.  Paul,  "Though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh, 
yet  now  henceforth  know  we  him  no  more."  (2  Cor. 
V,  16.) 

As  regards  the  morality  and  humanity  of  professed 
Christianity,  things  were  worse  at  the  court  of  Constan- 
tine  than  under  Titus,  Adrian,  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  worse  still  in  the  so-called  Christian  Rome  of  the 


40  Science  and  Christianity 

Borgias.  The  Middle  Ages,  with  the  Inquisition,  the 
witch-trials,  and  the  Thirty-years'  War — all  of  them  the 
result  of  a  mistaken  idea  of  Christianity,  and  three  of 
the  most  horrible  phenomena  of  history — were,  from  the 
standpoint  of  civilization,  a  great  retrogression  from 
Egyptian,  Greek,  and  Roman  times.  Goethe,  Schiller, 
and  others,  were  not  altogether  wrong  in  expressing 
their  regret  that  Christianity — that  is,  what  they  falsely 
regarded  as  such — had  not  shown  itself  capable  of  pro- 
ducing conditions  so  beautiful  and  harmonious  as  classic 
antiquity. 

It  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  Christianity  civilizes 
and  makes  happy  a  people  who  are  only  Christians  in 
name.  Faith  brings  happiness  here  and  hereafter,  but 
only  to  him  who  believes,  certainly  not  by  a  sort  of 
infection  to  the  neighbor  who  ridicules  it,  or  hates  and 
despises  it.  He  has  only — and  this  applies  equally  to 
nations — the  greater  condemnation.  It  would  be  a  bit- 
ter mockery  to  hold  up  to  our  admiration  as  a  result  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christ  the  culture  and  civilization  of  the 
professedly  Christian  nations  of  Europe,  from  Arch- 
angel to  Gibraltar,  with  their  powerlessness  to  stem  the 
rising  tide  of  anarchy  and  socialism,  their  swindling 
transactions,  their  chosen  representatives  in  many  cases 
antichristians  or  even  atheists,  their  materialistic 
science  and  antichristian  literature,  their  sometimes 
immoral  and  sensual  art,  their  secret  or  open  enmity  to 
God. 

The  world  has  always  been,  and  will  always  be,  the 
enemy  of  God.  Christ  sent  his  disciples  into  the  world 
as  sheep  among  wolves,  sent  them  as  a  light  to  shine 
in  darkness,  as  a  salt  to  prevent  corruption;  and  that 


Progress?  41 

is  what  they  have  been  for  eighteen  centuries.  And  who 
can  deny  that  they  have  exercised  an  ennobhng  and 
refining  influence  on  their  surroundings?  But  it  is  just 
as  true  that  to  civilize  the  world  was  never  their  mis- 
sion; and  whenever  they  have  been  led  away  by  the 
idea  that  it  was  so,  they  have  found  the  fountain  of 
Divine  life  sealed. 

Christ  would  certainly  have  been  glad  to  comfort 
his  apostles  on  his  departure  with  the  assurance  that 
they  would  convert  the  world  and  bring  it  earthly  hap- 
piness, if  it  had  been  possible.  On  the  contrary,  he 
foretells  that  till  the  end  they  will  have  to  endure  ha- 
tred, tribulation,  persecution,  and  asks  them,  ''When 
the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth?" 
— a  question  which,  in  another  place,  he  answers  in  the 
negative:  "As  in  the  days  that  were  before  the  flood 
they  were  eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving 
in  marriage,  until  the  day  that  Noah  entered  into  the 
ark,  and  knew  not  until  the  flood  came  and  took  them 
all  away,  so  shall  also  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man 
be."  (St.  Matthew  xxiv,  38,  39.)  With  this  grand 
likening  of  the  future  end  of  the  world  to  the  destruc- 
tion in  its  sins  of  a  former  world,  full  of  violence  and 
wrong,  he  destroys  the  dream  of  Christian  progress. 

And  why  is  this  world's  history  to  end  with  the  ter- 
rible judgment  on  mankind  and  the  universe  which 
Christ  describes  in  St.  Matthew  xxiv  and  St.  Luke  xxi, 
and  of  which  the  Revelation  is  full,  if  the  world  and 
humanity  are  growing  ever  more  civilized,  more  Chris- 
tian? The  world  is  not,  and  never  will  be,  the  Bride 
of  the  Lamb. 

The  Bible  gives  us  two  pictures:  that  of  the  multi- 


42  Science  and  Christianity 

tudes  going  through  the  wide  gate  that  leads  to  destruc- 
tion, and  that  of  the  people  of  God  under  various  types, 
the  God-fearing  men  in  the  days  before  the  Flood,  the 
chosen  people,  and,  finally,  the  Church  of  Christ,  walk- 
ing in  the  narrow  way  that  leads  to  everlasting  life. 


Many  will  say  that  this  is  a  very  gloomy  view  to 
take.  Are  we  to  believe  that  humanity  moves  ever  in 
a  circle,  without  advancing  a  step;  that  it  is  to  thirst 
forever  for  a  happiness  which  is  unattainable?  What  a 
dreadful  idea!  We  answer,  Who  is  to  blame  for  it? 
God  most  certainly  not !  Does  he  order  men  to  destroy 
one  another  in  bloody  wars,  and  to  spend  annually,  in 
Europe  alone,  millions  of  money  in  training  millions 
of  young  men  to  kill  as  many  as  possible  of  their  fellow- 
creatures?  Is  it  his  will  that  men  should  blunt  their 
sensibilities  for  what  is  true,  good,  and  beautiful  by 
making  themselves  slaves  to  pleasure  and  avarice,  to 
foolish  pride  and  ridiculous  vanities,  to  conventional 
lies  and  social  etiquette?  Are  we  taught  in  his  Word 
to  lead  narrow  and  artificial  lives,  to  injure  our  own 
health  and  that  of  our  children,  and,  by  treading  down 
all  rivals  and  competitors  in  the  race  for  wealth  and 
fame,  do  infinite  harm? 

On  the  contrary,  the  God  and  Father  of  all  men  com- 
mands, warns,  begs  us,  individuals  and  nations  alike, 
on  every  page  of  his  Word,  to  consider  what  makes  for 
peace,  to  do  justice,  to  eschew  evil,  to  love  one  another, 
to  bear  one  another's  burdens,  to  forgive  and  bless  in- 
stead of  cursing,  and  promises  that  He  will  then  bless 


Progress? 

us  beyond  all  desire  and  understanding,  will  keep  fai 
from  us  all  evil  and  danger,  sickness  and  pestilence,  and 
all  that  troubles;  "for  he  doth  not  afflict  willingly  nor 
grieve  the  children  of  men."     (Lamentations  iii,  S^.) 

And  that  we  may  not  doubt  his  power  to  do  all  this, 
he  bids  us  note :  ''The  Lord's  hand  is  not  shortened  that 
it  can  not  save,  neither  his  ear  heavy  that  it  can  not 
hear;  but  your  iniquities  have  separated  between  you 
and  your  God,  and  your  sins  have  hid  his  face  from 
you,  that  he  will  not  hear."  (Isaiah  lix,  12.)  ''Return, 
saith  the  Lord,  for  I  am  merciful,  and  I  will  not  keep 
anger  forever."    (Jeremiah  iii,  12.) 

But  who  believes  him?  We  are  very  wise  and  very 
clever,  and  nothing  is  impossible  to  modern  science. 
"We  have  no  need  of  him!"  cries  a  blind  and  perverse 
generation.  With  commercial  treaties  and  rational  agri- 
culture we  can  make  sure  of  our  daily  bread.  We  might 
even  manufacture  it  chemically.  We  will  save  ourselves 
from  death  with  tuberculine,  anti-pyrine,  and  serum  by 
inoculation  for  all  diseases.  We  will  solve  the  social 
problem  with  newspaper  articles  and  evangelical  con- 
gresses. We  will  master  the  Word  of  God  by  the  Higher 
Criticism.  We  will  find  out  by  free  investigation 
whether  he  exists  at  all !  We  shall  get  on  very  well  by 
ourselves. 

What  wonder  that,  with  such  ideas,  man  makes  no 
progress !  How  can  the  creature  live  separated  from  the 
Creator?  As  there  is  for  the  earth  no  other  source  of 
light  and  heat  than  the  sun,  so  there  is  for  mankind  no 
progress  possible  save  that  contained  in  the  words. 
Nearer  to  God. 

The  perversity  of  man  can  never  hinder  or  prevent 


44  Science  and  Christianity 

the  accomplishment  of  the  Divine  purposes.  The  Bible 
tells  us  nothing  of  the  coming  time  when,  thanks  to  the 
march  of  science,  art,  and  inventions,  trade  and  com- 
merce, the  earth  will  resemble  an  immense  hotel,  fur- 
nished with  every  comfort  and  luxury  that  skill  and 
hygience  can  suggest,  lighted  by  electricity,  providing 
an  enlightened  humanity,  emancipated  from  the  yoke 
of  superstition  and  prejudice,  with  chemical  foods  at 
low  prices;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  does  it  know 
anything  of  the  theory  that,  in  so  many  million  years, 
mankind  will  be  compelled,  by  a  cosmic  process  of  re- 
frigeration, to  abandon  the  present  centers  of  civilization, 
and  will  be  driven,  by  degrees,  to  the  equator,  where 
they  will  eventually  perish  miserably  from  cold.  God 
has  appointed  to  everything  a  time.  The  ephemera  and 
the  flower,  the  animal  and  the  tree,  the  individual  man 
and  the  nation,  each  has  its  time  to  be  born  and  its 
time  to  die.  Will  it  not  be  the  same  with  the  human 
race? 

Scripture  points  definitely  to  the  fact.  Daniel,  to 
whom  God  revealed  the  destinies  of  nations,  prophe- 
sies that  after  the  four  empires — the  Babylonian,  the 
Persian,  the  Greek,  and  the  Roman  (the  last  interrupted 
by  the  time  of  wrath  against  Israel,  to  rise  up  again 
in  the  ten  kingdoms  of  Antichrist,  corresponding  to 
the  ten  horns  of  the  fourth  beast  and  the  ten  toes  of 
the  statue) — no  other  empire  will  follow;  but  the  God  of 
heaven  will  give  the  kingdom  to  the  people  of  the 
saints  of  the  Most  High,  whose  kingdom  is  an  ever- 
lasting kingdom.  (Daniel  vii.)  Prophecy  tells  us  further 
that  the  Messiah,  the  Christ,  will  come  again,  to  rule 
over  this  kingdom.     Finally,  we  are  warned  not  to  de- 


Progress?  45 

spise  the  prophecy,  and  taught  what  signs  will  herald 
the  end  of  the  world,  with  the  assurance  that  in  the  last 
days  "many  shall  run  to  and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall 
be  increased."     (Daniel  xii,  4.) 

Though  it  is  not  expressly  taught,  there  is  much 
to  be  said  for  the  belief  held  by  the  Jews  that,  judging 
from  the  analogy  of  the  creation — the  Mosaic  law — and 
the  duration  of  the  above-mentioned  empires,  the  his- 
tory of  humanity  comprises  a  symbolical  week  of  six 
thousand  years  of  labor  and  pain,  to  be  followed  by 
a  millennial  Sabbath  of  rest  and  refreshment.  God  as- 
sures us  in  his  Word  of  a  speedy,  complete,  and  glo- 
rious fulfillment  of  all  his  promises,  but  only  after  ter- 
rible judgments,  as  set  forth  in  the  Revelation.  For 
whose  fault?  Man  has  for  six  thousand  years  defiled 
the  earth,  stained  every  stone  of  it  with  blood,  filled  the 
world  with  hatred  and  violence,  defiance  and  unclean- 
ness.  Such  guilt  demands  punishment.  Therefore, 
when  the  day  of  judgment  arrives,  the  powers  of 
heaven  shall  be  shaken,  the  sun  shall  be  darkened,  and 
the  moon  shall  not  give  her  light;  and  there  shall  be 
lightning  and  thunderings,  earthquakes  and  great  hail, 
famine  and  pestilence;  for  the  seven  angels  shall  pour 
out  upon  the  earth  the  vials  of  the  wrath  of  God. 

But  when  his  lightnings  shall  have  destroyed  the 
wicked,  God  will  make  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth, 
and  the  eternal  Te  Deum  shall  rise  from  the  redeemed, 
accompanied  by  the  songs  of  the  whole  creation,  the 
harmony  of  the  spheres,  and  the  harps  of  angels. 

And  this  is  progress — a  progress  which  will  satisfy 
all  human  longings  as  the  most  beautiful  dreams  of  all 
its  earthly  apostles  could  never  do. 


CHAPTER    II 

Evolution  and  Modern  Science 

IT  will  no  doubt  have  struck  many  as  strange  that 
I  have,  in  the  first  chapter,  denied  that  mankind  has 
made  any  advance;  for  progress  is  undeniably  the  law 
of  creation.  Each  being,  every  organism,  is  subject 
to  a  necessity  of  becoming  other  than  it  is,  of  develop- 
ing— in  a  word,  it  grows.  Not  only  the  animal  and 
the  plant,  the  crystal,  too,  obeys  this  law;  and  it  is 
difficult  at  first  sight  to  imderstand  why  humanity, 
which,  as  history  shows,  forms  an  organic  whole,  alone 
does  not  follow  it.  The  answ^er — and  it  is  one  which 
gives  the  key  to  many  an  enigma  of  life — is,  that  man  is 
not  in  his  original  and  normal  state :  he  is  no  longer 
as  God  created  him.  He  who  denies  the  fall  will  find 
no  solution  to  the  mysteries  of  life;  he  who  believes  in 
it  will  at  least  see  a  reason  for  their  existence,  and  will 
recognize  why  he  can  not  solve  them.  It  is  beyond  a 
doubt  that  man,  without  the  fall,  would  have  grown  in 
knowledge,  in  goodness,  and  in  happiness,  would  have 
become,  in  fact,  more  and  more  like  God.  Enoch,  the 
man  who  walked  with  God,  and  whom  he  took  to  him- 
self after  he  had  lived  the  great  cycle  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  years — a  year  for  a  day — is  an  example 
of  a  human  being  who  fulfilled  his  destiny,  and  a  type 
of  what  the  destiny  of  mankind  was  to  have  been.    We 

46 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  47 

should  have  ascended,  sinless  and  deathless,  to  ever 
greater  heights  of  knowledge  and  bliss.  But  man  fell 
away  from  God,  from  light,  from  the  source  of  all  truth 
and  all  knowledge.  To  what  depths  he  fell  it  is  beyond 
the  power  of  man  to  measure  or  to  realize.  We,  born 
in  sin,  poisoned  by  sin,  can  have  no  conception  of  the 
nature  of  a  sinless  being,  living  in  direct  contact  with 
God,  nor  the  bliss  of  a  paradise  in  which  God  associated 
freely  with  his  creature.  It  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  our 
fall  that  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  Adam  as  a  happy, 
innocent  child.  He  who  was  capable  and  w^orthy  of 
close  communion  with  the  great  Sun  of  the  universe, 
the  great  First  Cause,  stands  ipso  facto  far  above  the 
greatest  genius  of  all  time.  To  take  an  instance  from 
the  Bible,  we  read  that  Adam  gave  names  to  all  living 
creatures — truly  no  easy  task!  Should  we  be  equal  to 
it  if  God  suddenly  transported  us  to  Jupiter  or  Saturn, 
and,  making  thousands  of  creatures,  entirely  strange 
to  us,  and  all  different,  pass  before  us,  ordered  us  to 
name  them? 

It  is  true  that  progress — that  is,  progression  to- 
wards God,  a  progression  which  is  only  possible  in  so 
far  as  God  draws  his  creature  to  himself,  and  the  crea- 
ture lets  itself  be  drawn — is,  through  all  forms  of  ex- 
istence, from  the  atom  to  the  cherub,  the  fundamental 
law  of  'life.  This  progression  received  a  check  at  the 
fall.  But,  as  God  never  wastes  time,  he  is  using  this 
pause  for  the  evolution,  the  development  of  mankind 
in  good  or  in  self-chosen  evil;  for  the  growth  in  knowl- 
edge of  self,  leading  to  the  ultimate  attainment  of  a 
higher  goal.  This,  and  not  the  attainment  of  new  and 
higher  earthly  forms,  is  the  object  of  existence.     Be- 


48  Science  and  Christianity 

fore  the  Deluge  the  dominant  idea  was  that  of  individual 
strength,  of  brute  force.  This  period  was,  according  to 
the  Cabala,  the  two  thousand  years  of  the  tohu,  to  which 
succeeded  the  two  thousand  years  of  the  law.  Then 
were  to  follow  the  two  thousand  years  of  Messiah,  and, 
after  these  six  days  of  work,  the  great  Sabbath.  After 
the  Flood  we  find  the  instance — unique  in  history — of 
the  whole  of  mankind  uniting  for  one  purpose,  the 
building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  This  is  followed  by 
the  idea  of  a  peculiar  people  of  God,  chosen  that  in 
them  might  be  seen  the  progressive  revelation  of  great 
principles.  They  received  from  heaven  the  Divine  law. 
Then  there  was  a  gradual  development  of  successive 
ideas:  that  of  the  theocracy,  the  judgeship,  the  king- 
dom, that  of  the  office  of  poet  (which,  to  quote  Dean 
Bradley,  ''holds  its  place  among  the  appointed  means 
for  the  Divine  education  of  the  race"),  as  manifested 
in  David,  of  sage  and  philosopher  in  Solomon,  followed 
by  that  of  seer  and  prophet,  with  their  warnings  and 
predictions.  After  the  rejection  of  Israel,  four  ruling 
ideas  are  set  forth,  symbolized  by  the  four  beasts  and 
the  four  metals  of  Daniel's  visions — this  latter  image 
met  with  in  more  than  one  mythology.  After  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  idea  of  the  Church  and  an 
earthly  vicegerent  of  Christ  was  evolved,  to  make  way, 
finally,  for  that  of  the  Reformation.  These  successive 
ideas  are  not,  as  a  pessimistic  Christianity  seems  to  be- 
lieve, repeated  fruitless  attempts  of  God  to  draw  man- 
kind back  to  himself,  till,  weary  and  full  of  wrath  at 
their  perversity,  he  will  bring  about  the  final  destruc- 
tion of  the  world.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  successive 
stages,  predetermined  and  directed  by  God,  in  the  evo- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  49 

lutlon  of  those  germs  of  evil  contained  in  the  fall;  and 
they  afford  him  an  opportunity  of  displaying  his  power, 
his  wisdom,  his  justice,  and  his  grace.  And  this  must 
continue  till,  at  the  appointed  time,  the  whole  mystery 
of  iniquity  shall  be  revealed  (2  Thessalonians  ii,  7-12), 
and  God  will  bring  to  light,  by  a  final  judgment,  the 
hidden  things  of  these  successive  evolutions,  showing 
to  angels,  to  devils,  and  to  men  what  new  creations 
of  grace  and  truth  have  resulted  from  them.  Thus 
Satan,  believing  himself  the  conqueror,  will  find  him- 
self vanquished,  and  the  mystery  of  God  shall  be  fin- 
ished.    (Revelations  x,  7.) 

Running  parallel  with  the  evolution  of  these  great 
ideas  expressing  the  relation  between  God  and  man 
there  has  always  been  a  corresponding  development  of 
human  ideas.  Each  great  people  is  really  only  the  evo- 
lution of  a  great  idea;  and  its  great  man,  or  men,  are 
those  who  best  exemplify  that  idea.  As  we  have  al- 
ready said,  ancient  Egypt  had  for  ideal  the  well-regu- 
lated hierarchy,  at  its  head  the  priest-king,  and  her 
strength  lay  in  the  ever-present  thought  of  eternity. 
Babylon  represents  absolute  monarchy  by  the  grace 
of  God  (Daniel  ii,  2i7^  3^)5  Greece  symbolizes  the  idea 
of  beauty;  Rome,  as  its  name  indicates,  that  of  strength 
and  power;  the  barbarian  nations,  natural  vigor.  The 
civilized  nations  of  to-day  aim  at  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  natural  science,  while  the  twentieth  century 
will  have  as  its  characteristic  feature  the  development 
of  psychology  and  spiritual  intercourse.  Who  dare 
maintain  that  any  one  of  these  ideas  is  nobler  or  higher 
than  the  others?  All  are  beautiful,  great,  and  divine, 
and  all  will  have  their  place  in  the  new  creation:  for 
4 


50  Science  and  Christianity 

"they  shall  bring  the  glory  and  honor  of  the  nations 
into  it."     (Revelation  xxi,  26.) 

Evolution  is  not  progress  in  the  sense  that  a  thing 
evolves  gradually  of  itself  into  something  higher  and 
different.  It  is  a  growth,  a  development,  a  progressive 
revelation,  not  of  a  general  principle,  but  of  individual 
principles,  as  the  oak-tree  grows  from  the  acorn  which 
even  in  the  germ  contains  all  its  forms,  as  the  child 
becomes  the  man,  possessing  the  same  faculties,  quali- 
ties, and  virtues,  but  developing  them.  From  the 
Biblical  and  historical  point  of  view,  the  march  of  hu- 
manity is  a  series  of  consecutive  evolutions,  more  or 
less  independent  of  one  another,  and  by  no  means  im- 
plying general  progress.  It  is  in  this  that  the  Biblical 
idea  of  humanity  differs  from  the  Darwinian. 

We  can  not  believe  that  God  created  a  tiny  cell 
containing  all  the  powders  and  germs  of  the  future  cre- 
ation, and  then  looked  on  while  this  seed,  this  egg, 
developed  under  the  influence  of  natural  forces,  cir- 
cumstances, and  accidents,  into  thousands  of  varied, 
beautiful  forms,  each  perfectly  adapted  to  its  environ- 
ment. That  he  could  have  done  so  is  beyond  doubt; 
for  we  believe  in  an  Almighty  God.  But  in  the  first 
place,  his  Word,  in  which  we  also  believe,  declares  that 
he  created  all  things  in  succession,  each  after  his  kind; 
secondly,  the  study  of  geology  and  paleontology  proves 
that  it  is  so.  The  evolution  of  the  universe  is  the  pro- 
nunciation by  God  of  a  succession  of  principles,  each 
higher  than  the  last:  *'And  God  said."  We  believe  that 
the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth  spoke  in  words  of 
thunder,  while  the  world  of  angels  listened  in  expect- 
ant amazement;  "Let  there  be  light!"  created  light — 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  51 

that  is,  as  distinguished  from  heavenly  light.  And  on 
the  five  successive  days  of  creation  God  pronounced 
great  names,  nouns  until  then  unknown  in  their  earthly 
sense  to  angels  and  cherubim:  day,  night,  sea,  land, 
herb,  seed,  fruit,  fowl,  fish,  reptile,  cattle;  and,  finally, 
the  Elohim  gave  utterance  to  the  still  higher  word, 
"Let  us  make  man." 

Then  there  began  a  pause  in  God's  work  of  crea- 
tion— the  Sabbath  of  his  rest — and  man  will  remain 
such  as  he  is  until  he  "makes  all  things  new,"  and  is 
best  fulfilling  his  destiny  by  studying  all  the  conditions 
of  his  own  nature,  and  that  of  creation  in  general,  in 
searching  out  "by  wisdom  concerning  all  things  that 
are  done  under  heaven ;  this  sore  travail  hath  God  given 
to  the  sons  of  man,  to  be  exercised  therewith."  (Eccle- 
siastes  i,  13.) 

But  when  the  great  evolution-period  of  humanity 
is  over,  God  will  resume  his  work,  and  through  the 
aeons  will  bring  his  creatures  ever  nearer  to  himself  in 
successive  creation-periods,  interrupted  by  Sabbaths 
and  jubilee  years,  as  symbolized  in  the  law. 

In  the  meantime  man  must  seek  to  assimilate,  ac- 
cording to  the  amount  and  quality  of  his  powers,  all  of 
Divine  given  to  him  in  nature  and  revelation  before  he 
is  called  by  God's  creative  word  to  a  higher  stage  of 
existence. 

The  amount  of  knowledge  which  a  man  may  obtain 
by  study  is  not  unlimited.  Nature  certainly  affords  ma- 
terial enough  to  work  upon;  for  in  each  individual  atom, 
crystal,  plant,  animal,  man,  are  contained  such  deep 
and  eternal  Divine  truths  that  it  will  be  one  of  our  de- 
lights in  eternity  to  read,  understand,  and  admire  them. 


52  Science  and  Christianity 

A  being  of  a  higher  order  would  require  hundreds,  nay, 
thousands,  of  years  to  exhaust  the  knowledge  contained 
in  a  single  pebble;  for  it  comprises  all  physics,  all  chem- 
istry, all  the  mysteries  and  laws  of  matter,  as  well  as 
the  history  of  this  particular  individual  from  its  creation. 

But  man,  blind,  deaf,  and  dumb  through  sin,  can 
only  look  at  nature  in  a  paltry,  egotistical  sort  of  way, 
understanding  it  only  as  it  affects  himself;  and  he  can 
not  get  much  farther;  for,  like  a  weakly,  new-born  child, 
too  much  of  anything  is  injurious  to  him.  He  can  only 
attain  to  a  dim  conception  of  the  eternal  principles  of 
nature;  for  God  gives  him  his  intellectual  food  by 
measure. 

AVhen,  therefore,  man  has  exhausted  his  study  of  this 
earth,  when  it  is  borne  in  upon  him  that  verily  "there 
is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,"  when  the  question,  ''Is 
life  worth  living?"  comes  to  be  generally  asked,  the 
end  can  not  be  far  off.  God's  gift  has  been  assimilated, 
the  class  is  finished,  and,  before  the  entrance  into  the 
next,  the  great  examination  must  be  passed. 

Now,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  in  the  present  day 
there  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  we  have  exhausted 
subjects  and  forms  in  many  departments;  for  example, 
in  poetry  and  the  dramatic  art;  in  sculpture,  which  has 
represented  man,  woman,  and  child  to  satiety,  so  that 
the  individual  portrait  has  become  the  thing  to  interest. 
It  is  the  same  with  painting.  Madonnas  and  Descents 
from  the  Cross,  genre  pictures,  and  still  life  fail  to  arouse 
any  enthusiasm.  New  schools  seek  after  something 
fresh,  and,  in  the  pursuit  of  their  object,  fall  into  the 
fantastic,  the  unnatural,  the  revolting.  So,  too,  with 
the  novel.    The  various  types  have  been  done  to  death. 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  53 

Insanity,  vice,  and  crime,  a  sensual  mysticism,  psycho- 
logical vivisection,  are  the  fashion  at  present,  because 
they  are  at  least  something  new.  Even  architecture, 
the  art  which,  in  former  days,  was  almost  exclusively 
practiced  in  the  service  of  the  Deity,  seeks  bizarre  forms, 
to  avoid  the  continual  copying  of  the  classic  and  the 
Gothic.  It  is  the  same  with  regard  to  spiritual  things. 
The  lack  of  interest  in  philosophy  is  chiefly  due  to  the 
feeling  that  all  there  is  to  say  in  the  matter  has  been 
already  said;  and  as  regards  religious  questions,  ex- 
cept the  Salvation  Army,  a  few  feeble  attempts  to  re- 
vive Buddhism,  and  the  efforts  of  a  few  women,  like 
Mme.  Blavatsky,  Mrs.  Baker-Eddy,  and  Marie  Corelli, 
in  propounding  absurd  theosophies,  they  arouse  little 
or  no  interest  in  the  majority  of  mankind.  We  can 
hardly  realize  a  time  like  the  days  of  Luther,  when  the 
question  of  religion  was,  with  all  classes,  a  burning 
question  and  of  paramount  importance. 

God,  who  gives  us,  day  by  day,  our  daily  bread, 
does  not  leave  us  without  food  for  the  intellect.  He 
has  given  us,  through  Copernicus,  Newton,  Kepler, 
and  others,  an  insight  into  the  wonders  of  his  creation, 
which  should  spur  us  on  to  continued  contemplation 
and  study,  and  for  that  purpose  he  has  bestowed  on 
us  the  telescope  and  the  microscope;  for  each  discov- 
ery, too,  makes  its  appearance  "in  the  fullness  of  time." 
He  has  thus  opened  to  the  mentally  weary  a  new  field 
of  activity,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  work 
appointed  for  our  age  lies  in  the  investigation  of  the 
secrets  of  nature,  in  the  application  of  her  forces — 
truly  a  grand,  glorious,  and  elevating  task  for  the  hu- 
man mind. 


54  Science  and  Christianity 

If  ancient  nations  excelled  us  in  some  things,  the 
Egyptians  in  administration,  the  Greeks  in  art,  the  later 
Romans,  as  well  as  Assyrians  and  Persians,  in  luxury, 
even  the  people  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  their  interest 
for  philosophy  and  religion,  we  surpass  them  all  in  our 
knowledge  of  nature.  This  is  proved  by  the  mere  men- 
tions of  such  names  as  chemistry,  geology,  geognosy, 
micrography,  etc.,  which  were  unknown  to  former 
ages,  though  the  ancients  were  by  no  means  ignorant 
of  science,  as  some  suppose;  and  the  names  of  Hip- 
pocrates, Archimedes,  Aristotle,  Aristarchus  of  Samos, 
Hipparchus,  Vitruvius,  Euclid,  etc.,  will  always  be  held 
in  honor.  Nevertheless,  the  great  progress  in  this  field 
is  due  to  Copernicus,  Newton,  Kepler,  Linnaeus,  Her- 
schel,  Cuvier,  Laplace,  Arago,  Fulton,  Humboldt, 
Franklin,  Kirchhoff,  Bunsen,  Liebig,  Tyndall,  Faraday, 
Morse,  Helmholtz,  Pasteur,  Edison,  and  others  too 
numerous  to  mention. 


There  is  a  very  simple  means  of  testing  the  prog- 
ress which  a  nation  has  made  in  natural  science.  We 
need  only  ascertain  its  standard  of  measurement.  The 
ancients,  like  the  savages  of  to-day,  used  the  length  of 
the  hand,  foot,  arm,  or  step,  a  variable  measurement, 
which  makes  each  individual  his  own  standard.  Till 
a  century  ago  the  man  of  science  was  content  to  regard 
the  very  indefinite  ''line"  as  the  tenth  part  of  the  equally 
inexact  ''inch"  (thumb-breadth;  Fr.  ponce).  Then  there 
arose,  principally  in  consequence  of  the  advance  of  as- 
tronomy— a    science    founded    upon    exact    measure- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  55 

ment— the  necessity  for  a  fixed  measure;  and  the  meter, 
the  forty-millionth   part   of  the  earth's   circumference,' 
was  taken  as  the  standard.    The  scientist  uses  the  milli- 
meter (one  thousandth  of  a  meter);  but  even  this  is  too 
large  for  the  micrographer,  who  makes  use  of  the  mi- 
cron, the  thousandth  part  of  a  millimeter.     Soon,  how- 
ever, it  is  possible,  the  micron  may  cease  to  be  small 
enough;  for  we  have  already  micrometers  which  meas- 
ure the  ten-thousandth  part  of  a  millimeter  veryexactly. 
The   blood-corpuscles,   which   were   formerly   invisible, 
are,   for  us,   bodies  whose  variations  of  diameter  and 
thickness  are  measurable.     And  yet  the  size  of  such  a 
corpuscle  is  only  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand 
binionth  of  a  cubic  meter!    And  what  of  the  bacilli,  of 
which  two  or  three  hundred  millions  are  contained  in 
a  cubic  millimeter,  and  of  which  we  can  breed  and  cul- 
tivate the  various  species  as  if  they  were  so  many  sheep? 
So  far  have  we  sounded  the  depths  of  the  infinitely 
small. 

Then  as  to  space.  A  second  on  the  astronomical 
meridian— and  astronomers  reckon  with  tenths  of  a  sec- 
ond—equals the  twentieth  part  of  the  thickness  of  a 
hair;  and  yet  such  a  second,  observed  as  the  parallax 
of  a  star,  shows  that  this  star  is  distant  from  us  four 
billion  two  hundred  million  miles;  and  this  is  again 
employed  as  unit  in  measuring  the  distance  and  diameter 
of  the  nebulas. 

Some  savants  propose  to  take  as  absolute  and  in- 
variable measure  the  length  of  the  undulation  of  the 
yellow  ray  of  sodium=.oooo59o  millimeter.  We  al- 
ready measure  by  means  of  light  the  enormous  distances 
of  the  heavenly  bodies.     We  should  then  literally  take 


56  Science  and  Christianity 

the  ray  of  light  as  the  standard,  measuring  therewith 
the  immensity  of  the  universe  and  the  microbe.  Truly, 
the  wonders  of  creation  surpass  the  boldest  fancies  of 
the  poet.  God  has  revealed  to  us  a  poetry  of  nature 
grander  and  truer  than  that  of  antiquity,  and  calcu- 
lated, if  we  understand  it  aright,  to  raise  us  to  him,  its 
Author;  for  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  our  age  is 
less  rich  in  the  poetry  of  existence  than  any  other.  It 
is  probable  that  the  quantity  of  the  poetic  faculty  in 
the  world  remains  constantly  about  the  same,  and  the 
contrary  impression  with  regard  to  former  ages  is  due 
merely  to  an  illusion  of  perspective.  We  admire  from 
afar  the  blue  summit  of  a  mountain  which,  on  close 
inspection,  is  found  to  consist  of  sand  and  earth,  like 
the  ground  at  our  feet.  It  is  the  same  with  antiquity. 
The  beautiful,  the  great,  the  heroic,  has  survived  be- 
cause it  was  worthy;  while  all  that  was  paltry  and  pro- 
saic has  perished.  The  old  Egyptians  and  Babylonians 
were  as  clever  and  poetical  as  we  are,  but  every  whit 
as  uninteresting  and  prosaic  too.  The  world-conquer- 
ing Roman  was  often  mean  and  petty;  the  wise  Cato 
himself  was  an  old  miser,  greedy  of  gain,  and  pitiless 
towards  his  slaves;  and  Caesar,  while  crossing  the  Alps, 
instead  of  being  lost  in  admiration  of  beauties  entirely 
new  to  him,  employed  his  time  more  profitably,  as 
he  thought,  in  writing  a  treatise  on  grammar. 

Our  age  has  its  grandeur  and  its  poetry  for  him  who 
has  eyes  to  see  and  an  understanding  heart.  The  St. 
Gothard  express,  drawn  by  a  flame-breathing  colossus, 
fed  on  coal  and  water,  boring  its  way  into  the  granite 
heart  of  the  mountain,  winding  up  and  down,  then 
rushing  out  panting  and  shrieking  to  pursue  its  swift 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  57 

career  through  mountain  gorges  and  over  precipices, 
till  it  stops  within  sight  of  the  blue  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean,  is  a  soul-stirring,  beautiful,  and  po- 
etical phenomenon.  So,  too,  are  the  great  liners,  the 
greyhounds  of  the  ocean — huge,  moving  palaces,  ani- 
mated by  engines  of  fifteen  to  eighteen  thousand  horse- 
power, carrying  hundreds  of  passengers  through  storm 
and  waves,  icebergs  and  fogs,  in  five  to  six  days  from 
the  Old  World  to  the  New. 

What  a  wonderful  sight  is  a  modern  ironclad,  this 
behemoth,  with  its  thick  hide  of  steel,  breathing  out 
smoke  and  steam,  emitting  from  its  eyes  electric  rays, 
speaking  with  the  cannon's  voice  of  thunder,  wound- 
ing mortally  with  its  sharp  spur,  and  bearing  in  its 
heart  the  great  engine  which  gives  it  strength  and  life ! 
Cold  and  lifeless,  motionless  and  dumb,  Ues  the  mon- 
ster, awaiting  the  breath  of  life.  The  word  of  com- 
mand sounds,  a  movement  of  the  lever,  and  life  and 
strength  enter  the  dead  body.  Groaning  and  moan- 
ing, at  first  slowly  and  with  difficulty,  then  more  and 
more  quickly  the  pistons  move  backwards  and  fore- 
wards,  like  fettered  monsters  turning  the  colossal  wheels. 
Soon  they  appear  to  be  pursuing  one  another  like  mad. 
Every  part  is  alive,  pushing,  pulling,  turning.  If  ten 
thousand  men  attempted  to  stop  the  machinery,  their 
arms  would  be  as  straw.  It  would  tear  them  ofT  or 
crush  them.  But  the  man  on  the  platform  moves  the 
lever  once  more,  the  motion  becomes  slower,  soon  it 
stops  altogether.  The  soul  has  fled,  and  the  dead  body 
lies  motionless  again.  It  may  be  thus  when  God  speaks 
a  word  of  creation  in  the  universe".  Glowing  suns  fly 
and  dance  in  space,  planets  whirl  round  them,  comets 


58  Science  and  Christianity 

describe  their  eccentric  paths  among  them.  Every- 
where there  is  Hfe,  and  the  music  of  the  spheres  re- 
sounds through  the  infinities  of  space.  When  it  is 
enough,  God  utters  another  word,  and  all  Hfe  is  ex- 
tinguished, everything  stands  still,  motionless,  lifeless, 
perhaps  through  countless  ^ons. 


But  to  return  to  our  modern  view  of  nature  and 
the  world.  While  the  older  naturalists — such  as  BufTon, 
Linnaeus,  Jussieu,  Lamarck,  etc. — concerned  themselves 
more  with  the  various  organisms,  comparing  them  and 
endeavoring  to  classify  them,  modern  science  inquires 
into  the  general  conditions  of  existence  common  to 
all  beings.  The  question  of  greatest  interest  is  in  re- 
gard to  matter — what  it  is — a  question  which  puzzled 
Plato,  who  said :  ''The  nature  of  matter  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  understand.  The  nearer  one  gets  to  it,  the  more 
incomprehensible  and  mysterious  it  appears."  Newton 
taught  its  indestructibility,  and  attributed  all  phenomena 
to  the  attraction  and  repulsion  of  atoms.  Dubois-Rey- 
mond  writes,  "To  understand  nature,  or,  more  cor- 
rectly speaking,  natural  science,  is  to  refer  all  changes 
in  the  material  world  to  the  movement  of  atoms  effected 
by  central  forces,  or  to  the  resolution  of  natural  processes 
into  the  mechanism  of  atoms." 


Let  us  examine  more  nearly  these  mysterious  par- 
ticles of  matter  together  with  the  forces  inherent  in 
them  or  acting  upon  them.     "Our  modern  science," 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  59 

says  Buckner,  "rests  upon  the  law  of  the  conservation 
of  energy  as  well  as  on  the  principle  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  matter;"  in  other  words,  we  must  refer  all  ma- 
terial changes  effected  in  nature  neither  to  re-creation 
nor  annihilation,  but  simply  to  transformation  of  the 
elements. 

Matter  and  force  are,  then,  what  make  up  crea- 
tion. Science,  however,  has  no  certain  knowledge  of 
the  nature  of  either.  It  is  not  even  known  whether  one 
can  exist  independently  of  the  other.  For  all  prac- 
tical purposes  matter  without  force  does  not  exist,  as 
far  as  we  are  concerned.  Its  essence  we  can  neither 
feel,  see,  hear,  nor  perceive  in  any  way;  it  is  only  ap- 
parent to  our  senses  through  the  forces  which  act  in 
or  on  it.  Thus  matter  has  weight  because  it  exercises 
the  power  of  attraction.  We  see  it  because  the  atoms 
and  molecules  of  which  it  is  composed,  being  continu- 
ally in  motion,  refract,  absorb,  or  reflect  the  rays  of  Hght. 
We  hear  it  because  its  particles  are  in  a  state  of  con- 
stant vibration,  and  they  communicate  this  motion  to 
other  atoms,  thus  producing  sound.  Weight,  color, 
sound,  all  physical  phenomena,  are  simply  transforma- 
tions of  motion,  as  physics  and  chemistry  teach.  The 
smallest  drop  of  water  which  evaporates,  the  smallest 
particle  of  iron,  which  rusts  incessantly,  is  not,  rightly 
and  scientifically  considered,  a  dead  particle  of  a  dead 
substance.  It  is  a  microcosm  of  billions  of  atoms  whirl- 
ing round  one  another  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  com- 
bining with  the  surrounding  matter  to  produce  new 
forms,  displaying  a  most  extraordinary  vitality. 

How  have  we  arrived  at  this  conception  of  single 
atoms  which  no  one  has  ever  seen  or  ever  will  see? 


6o  Science  and  Christianity 

Simply  by  recognizing  that  it  affords  the  only  possible 
explanation  of  the  fundamental  fact  of  chemistry,  that 
atoms  will  not  combine  in  any  proportion,  but  only 
according  to  an  invariable  law.  Thus  eight  parts  of 
oxygen  will  only  combine  with  one  part  of  hydrogen,  or 
sixteen  of  oxygen  with  two  of  hydrogen,  and  so  on;  but 
not  one  and  a  half  of  oxygen  with  five  or  seven  and  three- 
quarters  of  hydrogen.  Eight  parts  of  oxygen  is,  there- 
fore, the  equivalent  of  one  part  of  hydrogen.  And  so  it 
is  with  all  elements. 

It  is  interesting  that  these  atoms,  in  entering  on  a 
combination,  display  very  marked  predilections.  Those 
which  bear  the  greatest  resemblance  to  one  another, 
and  belong,  in  a  certain  sense,  to  the  same  family,  like 
the  metals,  show  no  af^nity  for  one  another;  and  if  they 
do  combine,  the  product  of  their  union,  according  to 
Liebig,  possesses  the  faults  and  virtues  of  the  family 
highly  intensified;  while  the  combination  of  two  atoms 
of  opposite  nature,  but  having  a  great  affinity  for  one 
another,  produces  an  entirely  different  body,  bearing 
no  trace  of  its  parentage.  Thus  in  the  chemical  world 
also  there  exists  the  attraction  of  opposites;  and  it  is 
one  of  the  mysteries  of  creation  that  an  atom  of  iron 
will  rather  unite  with  an  atom  of  oxygen  than  with  an 
atom  of  gold  or  silver. 

As  regards  the  number  of  these  elements — that  is, 
those  bodies  which  chemistry  has  so  far  not  been  able 
to  decompose — Mendeljefif  and  Lothar  Mayer  discov- 
ered that  they  can  be  arranged  in  groups  of  seven,  cor- 
responding to  octaves  in  sound,  and  that  the  do,  re,  mi, 
of  one  octave  or  group  show  a  distinct  resemblance  in 
properties,  weight,  etc.,  to  those  of  another.    Here  and 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  6i 

there  gaps  occur  in  the  series,  from  which  it  seems  to 
follow  that  there  exist  elements  yet  unknown  to  us.  A 
few — germanium,  for  example — have  already  been  dis- 
covered by  means  of  this  theory,  which  is  known  as  the 
law  of  octaves. 

According  to  Mendeljeff,  then,  there  are  a  hundred 
elements — two  groups  of  seven  and  five  groups  of  seven- 
teen each,  and  hydrogen.  Of  these,  sixty-three  are 
known  up  to  the  present  time. 

The  elements  with  which  we  are  acquainted  may 
be  divided,  according  to  their  practical  value,  into  three 
groups.  The  first  group  contains  eighteen.  These  are 
the  bodies  most  widely  diffused  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  and  also  those  which  are  most  indispensable  to 
life.  But  why  does  this  mysterious  thing,  which  we 
call  life,  require  these  mysterious  unities  of  matter  for 
its  manifestation  and  preservation,  and  why  these  in 
particular?  We  do  not  know?  They  are  aluminium, 
bromine,  calcium,  chlorine,  iron,  fluorine,  iodine,  po- 
tassium, carbon,  magnesium,  manganese,  sodium,  phos- 
phorus, oxygen,  sulphur,  silicon,  nitrogen,  hydrogen — 
by  no  means  those  with  which  we  are  most  familiar. 

The  second  group  comprises  twenty-three  elements. 
They  are  not  so  generally  distributed  as  those  in  the 
first  group,  and  are  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  indispen- 
sable to  life.  They  constitute  the  luxury,  the  ornaments, 
of  nature,  if  she  recognizes  such.  Strange  to  say,  the 
best-known  metals  are  contained  in  this  group:  gold, 
silver,  lead,  copper,  nickel,  platinum,  mercury,  zinc, 
tin,  etc. 

In  the  third  group  are  twenty-two  very  rare  ele- 
ments.    We  do  not  yet  know  what  part  they  play  in 


62  Science  and  Christianity 

the  economy  of  nature,  nor  whether  their  absence  would 
make  any  difference  to  us.  It  is  possible,  however,  that 
they  might  be  sorely  missed.  Lithium,  tellurium,  in- 
dium, zirconium,  are  some  of  the  names  by  which  they 
are  known. 

A  chemist  who  is  very  familiar  with  these  elements 
writes  of  them  thus :  ''We  have  here  a  highly  respectable 
and  interesting  gathering.  There  are  aristocrats  and 
democrats  among  them,  natures  phlegmatic  and  san- 
guine, arrogant  and  modest,  brilliant  and  insignificant. 
Some  are  nervous  and  irritable,  flying  into  a  passion  on 
the  slightest  provocation.  Some  have  very  pronounced 
characteristics;  others  are  without  any.  They  are  ener- 
getic or  idle,  selfish  or  vain,  hard  or  soft,  reserved  or 
sympathetic,  ethereal  or  corpulent,  kings  or  vassals, 
mediators  or  stirrers-up  of  strife;  in  short,  they  display 
characters  of  every  variety."  (G.  Buchner.  Die  chemi- 
schen  Elemente.) 

In  spite  of  their  sociability,  these  units  of  matter 
possess  an  absolutely  indestructible  individuality.  An 
atom  of  sulphur  may  be  burned,  may  be  given  off  in  the 
form  of  gas,  as  S  O2;  may  assume  a  liquid  form,  as  in 
S  O3;  may  combine  with  iron  to  produce  hard,  yellow 
crystals,  iron  pyrites  (Fe  So)  without  changing  its  na- 
ture or  losing  its  properties  in  the  slightest  degree.  Let 
it  be  released  from  its  combinations,  and  it  returns  to 
its  original  state,  with  the  same  power  of  attraction, 
the  same  affinity,  the  same  specific  gravity — indestruct- 
ible, immortal,  an  absolute  vitality.  All  our  machinery, 
all  the  forces  of  nature,  are  powerless  in  face  of  this  tiny 
unity  of  creation.  The  heaviest  steam  hammer  can  not 
crush  it,  the  strongest  hydraulic  pressure  has  no  effect 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  63 

on  it.  Man  and  all  things  living  may  disappear  from 
the  earth,  the  sun  and  all  the  heavenly  bodies  be  dis- 
solved; but  an  atom  of  hydrogen  remains  an  atom  of 
hydrogen  through  all,  only  to  be  changed  or  annihi- 
lated by  a  word  from  God.  And  yet  men  talk  of  dead 
matter ! 

Of  what  size  and  shape  are,  then,  these  atoms  and 
particles  of  bodies?  The  question  is  not  easy  to  answer. 
The  simplest  hypothesis  seems  to  be  that  which  assumes 
that  the  form  of  an  atom  of  any  element  is  identical  with 
that  in  which  it  crystallizes.  As  to  their  size,  Gaudin 
concludes  from  microscopical  observations  that  the 
distance  of  the  atoms  from  one  another  is  not  greater 
than  the  ten-millionth  of  a  millimeter,  so  that  a  man 
would  require  250,000  years  to  count  those  contained  in 
the  head  of  a  pin. 

Lord  Kelvin  concludes  from  observations  of  the 
light  waves,  capillary  attraction,  and  the  movement  of 
gaseous  molecules,  that  the  diameter  of  a  molecule  va- 
ries between  one-millionth  and  one-hundred-millionth 
of  a  millimeter.  Lothar  Mayer  calculates  that  a  quarter 
of  a  quadrillion  (one  million  billions)  of  hydrogen  atoms 
weighs  about  a  gram.  It  is  true  that  these  are  only 
approximations,  but  at  least  they  do  not  contradict  one 
another,  and  science  must  begin  with  approximations  in 
order  to  arrive,  by  degrees,  at  certain  data. 

That  matter  is  not  continuous,  but  discontinuous, 
is  also  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  same  elements,  com- 
bined in  the  same  proportion,  will  produce  bodies  pos- 
sessing different  qualities — e.  g.,  vinegar  and  the  ill- 
smelling  butyric  acid — a  fact  which  is  owing  to  their 
elementary    constituents    being    differently    arranged, 


64  Science  and  Christianity 

grouped,  or  built  up.  On  the  other  hand,  frequently 
the  same  body  displays  different  physical  properties, 
probably  for  the  same  reason;  another  specific  gravity, 
another  crystal  form.  For  example,  this  is  seen  in  the 
case  of  carbon,  which  occurs  as  diamond,  as  black  lead, 
as  coal;  of  phosphorus,  which  is  at  one  time  yellow  and 
crystalline,  at  another  red  and  amorphous.  Thus  not 
only  the  quantity,  but  the  form  and  arrangement  of  the 
atoms  has  an  influence  upon  the  outward  appearance, 
and  also  upon  the  properties,  of  the  body. 

But  as  the  atom  does  not  satisfy  the  requirements 
of  science,  the  molecule  has  been  invented.  By  this 
term  was  formerly  meant  a  combination  of  two  or  more 
atoms  of  different  substances,  such  as  a  molecule  of 
water  composed  of  one  atom  of  hydrogen  and  eight  of 
oxygen.  Now,  however,  we  have  hydrogen  and  oxy- 
gen molecules,  aggregations  of  atoms  of  the  same 
substance.  How  have  vjq  been  led  to  this  conclusion? 
for  that  no  one  has  ever  seen  a  molecule  is  a  certainty. 
By  observing  that,  as  a  rule,  the  elements  exist,  so  to 
speak,  in  a  fettered  condition.  For  example,  were  all 
the  atoms  of  oxygen  free,  they  would  consume  us  like 
a  devouring  fire.  Fire  is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  ra- 
pacity, the  fury  with  which  oxygen  atoms  precipitate 
themselves  upon  other  atoms.  In  order  to  explain  their 
customary  inactivity,  we  assume  that  they  are  chained 
to  one  another,  and  neutralize  each  other's  efforts,  like 
two  galley-slaves  fettered  together,  each  anxious  to  fall 
upon  a  different  prey,  and  dancing  round  one  another 
in  powerless  rage.  But  when  their  rapacity  is  increased 
to  the  highest  degree  by  heat,  electricity,  or  the  pres- 
ence of  other  energetic  elements,  these  atoms  burst 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  65 

their  bonds,  fall  upon  other  substances,  and  form  com- 
posite molecules. 

These  atoms  and  molecules  do  not  touch  one 
another.  A  sufficient  proof  of  this  is  the  fact  that  the 
hardest  steel  expands  with  heat  and  contracts  with  cold. 
From  the  action  of  molecular  forces  it  has  been  con- 
cluded that  in  a  cubic  centimeter  of  air  all  the  molecules 
together  amount  only  to  one-third  of  a  cubic  millimeter 
— that  is,  one  three-thousandth  of  the  whole  apparent 
volume.  According  to  other  computations,  they  are 
still  smaller.  Flammarion  supposes  that  a  cubic  centi- 
meter of  air  contains  a  sextillion  molecules.  Looked 
at  by  the  mind's  eye,  then,  a  rifle  bullet  is  not,  in  reality, 
a  hard,  solid  mass,  but  rather  resembles  a  swarm 
of  gnats,  or — for  extremes  meet — one  of  those  distant 
nebulae,  consisting  of  millions  of  suns  whirling  round 
each  other.  These  molecules  move  round  and  about 
one  another  with  a  velocity  of  which  we  can  form  no 
idea.  The  speed  in  a  hydrogen  molecule  reaches,  at 
an  ordinary  temperature,  two  kilometers  in  a  second, 
four  times  that  of  a  cannon-ball. 

The  atoms  in  a  molecule  are  held  together  and 
grouped  by  forces  which  attract  or  repel,  possibly  by 
electricity.  Flammarion  says:  "We  have  no  concep- 
tion of  the  energy  of  these  molecular  forces.  If  we 
heat  a  kilo  (about  two  pounds)  of  iron  from  0° 
to  100°,  it  expands  about  one  eight-hundredth, 
therefore  to  an  imperceptible  degree;  and  yet  the  force 
which  caused  this  expansion  would  suffice  to  raise  ten 
thousand  pounds  a  height  of  one  meter.  The  force  of 
gravitation  almost  disappears  when  compared  with  these 
molecular  forces.  The  power  of  attraction  which  the 
5 


66  Science  and  Christianity 

earth  exerts  on  the  above-mentioned  kilo  is  as  nothing 
compared  to  the  mutual  attraction  of  its  molecules. 
When  one  kilogram  of  hydrogen  combines  with  eight 
of  oxygen  to  form  water,  a  force  is  exerted  which  would 
be  suf^cient  to  raise  the  temperature  of  thirty-four  thou- 
sand kilograms  of  water  one  degree,  or  to  lift  fourteen 
million  kilograms  one  meter.  Or,  to  put  it  differently, 
during  the  formation  of  these  nine  kilograms  of  water 
the  molecules  plunged  into  an  abyss,  which  would  be 
in  the  proportion  of  fourteen  thousand  meters  to  one 
thousand  kilograms  of  water.  (Astronomic  populaire, 
p.  398.) 

And  not  the  least  mystery  in  this  world  of  matter  is 
that  it  is  heat,  a  vibration  of  the  ether,  which  is  the 
source  of  life  to  these  atoms.  Professor  Raoul  Pictet, 
in  his  interesting  experiments  on  cold  and  its  efifects, 
has  proved  that  at  a  temperature  of  — 200°  the  acids  do 
not  act  upon  metals.  Their  molecules  have  ceased  to 
live.  And  yet  bacilli,  microbes,  subjected  to  that  tem- 
perature, practically  immured  in  a  block  of  frozen  air, 
were  perfectly  well.  At  — '^JZ^^  which  is  taken  as 
absolute  cold,  the  gas  molecules  cease  to  live.  Know- 
ing, then,  the  wonderful  power  of  heat,  this  more 
or  less  rapid  vibration  of  the  ether,  it  has  become  neces- 
sary to  fix  a  thermal  unit,  or  calorie,  which,  however, 
is  not  the  same  in  all  countries.  In  France  it  is  the 
quantity  of  heat  necessary  to  raise  the  temperature  of 
one  kilogram  of  water  through  one  degree  Centigrade; 
in  England  it  is  the  quantity  necessary  to  raise  one 
pound  of  water  through  one  degree.  (The  unit  of  work 
is  the  foot  pound;  that  is,  the  work  performed  in  raising 
a  weight  of  one  pound  through  the  height  of  one  foot.) 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  67 

It  is  well  known  that  water  atoms  or  molecules  In 
passing  from  the  liquid  to  the  solid  state,  that  is,  in 
freezing,  separate  with  such  force  that  they  easily  burst 
iron  bombs;  but  we  are  not  by  any  means  acquainted 
with  all  the  forces  which  have  matter  for  their  plaything. 
Not  long  ago  there  was  an  attempt  made  in  Vienna  to 
measure  the  resistance  of  the  hardest  stone,  corundum, 
and  the  hardest  steel.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  the 
steel,  being  much  the  softer,  would  yield  first.  A  cubic 
centimeter  of  corundum  crumbled  under  a  weight  of 
6,000  kg.  A  like  cube  of  steel,  however,  resisted  more 
than  seven  times  that  amount,  43,000  kg.,  and  instead 
of  simply  crumbling,  it  exploded  with  the  noise  of  a 
cannon,  sending  ofif  sparks  in  all  directions,  which  even 
penetrated  the  machine.  Evidently  unknown  forces 
were  here  at  work  on  a  hitherto  unknown  state  of  the 
metal.  Nitrogen  at  an  ordinary  temperature  resists  the 
pressure  of  2,890  atmospheres;  that  is,  its  molecules 
will  not  allow  themselves  to  be  brought  so  near  together 
as  to  become  liquid,  so  eager  are  the  atoms  for  freedom. 
And  what  would  it  be  at  a  temperature  like  that  of  the 
sun,  for  heat  increases  the  repelling  power  of  the  atoms, 
their  striving  for  liberty. 

Professor  Dewar  succeeded  in  producing  several 
liters  of  liquid  air  by  enormous  pressure.  Unfortunately 
we  shall  never  know  how  this  drink  tastes,  as  it  has  a 
temperature  of  — 200°,  and  would  have  the  effect  of 
molten  lead  upon  palate  and  stomach.  Professor  Pictet 
had  a  burn  caused  by  a  drop  of  it  which  took  six  weeks  to 
heal.  And  in  what  consists  the  force  of  gunpowder, 
melinite,  dynamite,  and  the  still  more  terrible  nitro- 
glycerine?   Simply  in  the  fact  that  here  atoms  have  been 


68  Science  and  Christianity 

forced  into  a  union  abhorrent  to  them,  and  not  having 
of  themselves  the  power  to  dissolve  the  union  they 
slumber  fettered  and  sullen;  but  rouse  them  by  even  a 
spark,  and  they  burst  their  bonds,  destroying-  every- 
thing around  them  in  their  victorious  attempt  to  pro- 
cure sufficient  room  for  their  individual  existence. 

All  earthly  substances  are  really  such  more  or  less  ill- 
assorted  unions,  forced  and  temporary  connections.  A 
little  more  heat,  10,000°  or  so,  a  mere  trifle  compared 
to  the  heat  of  the  sun,  would  suffice  to  resolve  these 
complex  substances  into  their  component  parts  with 
great  explosion,  and  also  to  change  the  apparently 
passive  materials,  stones,  etc.,  into  another  state  of  being, 
in  which  their  now  idle  and  lifeless  atoms  would  move 
with  power  and  freedom.  The  idea  of  the  great  mystic, 
Jacob  Boehme,  according  to  which  Creation,  divine 
matter,  was  laid  in  bonds  by  Lucifer  at  his  fall,  is  won- 
derfully borne  out  by  the  newest  chemical  and  astro- 
nomical views,  as  is  also  the  prophecy  of  St.  Peter  that 
"the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and 
the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat."  (2  Peter 
iii,  10.) 

The  further  and  the  deeper  we  seek  to  penetrate 
into  the  essence  of  matter,  the  more  we  are  confronted 
by  mysteries.  If  we  are  to  regard  an  atom,  a  unit,  as 
an  absolute  individuality,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  one 
such  can  differ  from  another  in  quality,  since  the  very 
idea  of  quality  is  based  upon  a  combination  of  different 
things.  Again,  it  is  incomprehensible  why  such  an  indi- 
viduality, which  undoubtedly  forms  a  complete  whole, 
and  ought  therefore  to  be  self-sufficient,  should  feel  irre- 
sistibly drawn  to  another  strange  and  unknown  whole, 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  69 

or  why  the  mutual  attraction  is  stronger  in  those  atoms 
which  are  most  unUke,  and  sometimes  increases  even  to 
fury.  It  is  also  beyond  our  comprehension  that  the 
union  of  two  entirely  different  atoms  produces  an  indi- 
vidual which  differs  both  in  appearance  and  properties 
from  the  parent  atoms.  The  chemist,  though  going  to 
the  root  of  things,  though  near  to  the  source  of  all  phe- 
nomena, is  obliged  to  confess  of  matter,  as  the  ancient 
sage  did  when  asked  by  the  king  what  God  was,  ''The 
longer  I  think  over  it,  the  less  I  understand  it,"  and 
must  content  himself  with  studying  the  wonderful  and 
inexplicable  forces  inseparable  from  matter,  and  the  laws 
by  which  they  are  manifested. 

The  terrible  forces  which  agitate  the  atoms  in  the 
smallest  bodies  are  the  same  that  drive  the  heavenly 
bodies  in  space.  First  of  all,  gravitation;  then  heat,  light, 
electricity,  all  different  phases  of  one  and  the  same 
power;  for  they  are  at  all  times  interchangeable.  When 
we  burn  coal  we  obtain  a  chemical  combination  of  car- 
bon and  oxygen;  that  produces  heat,  which  is  converted 
by  the  steam-engine  into  motion;  and  that  this  can 
be  changed  into  light  we  see  daily;  this  light  in  its  turn 
produces  (e.  g.,  in  photography)  chemical  combinations, 
and  thus  the  circle  is  complete,  and  in  so  far  we  can  say : 
One  force  moves  the  suns,  those  atoms  of  the  universe; 
and  the  atoms,  those  suns  and  force-centers  of  matter. 
As  we  know  exactly  how  much  motion  gives  a  certain 
amount  of  heat,  or  how  much  heat  produces  a  certain 
chemical  combination,  we  can  literally  store  up  force, 
or  forces,  keep  rays  of  sunlight  and  use  them  a  hundred 
miles  distant  or  ten  years  hence  as  motion,  chemical 
force,  heat,  light,  or  electricity,  according  as  we  wish. 


70  Science  and  Christianity 

This  unity  and  constancy  of  all  force  and  matter  is  the 
greatest  and  most  useful  discovery  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, as  that  of  the  law  of  gravitation  with  its  incalcu- 
lable results  to  science  was  of  the  eighteenth.  All  im- 
pressions which  we  receive  through  the  senses  are  but 
the  perception  of  molecular  movements.  Feeling,  hear- 
ing, and  sight  are  consequently  identical,  differing  only 
in  degree.  Let  us  suppose  ourselves  shut  up  in  a  dark 
room  touching  a  bar  of  steel  which  vibrates  ten  to 
twenty  times  in  a  second,  the  finger  would  feel  the  vibra- 
tion; let  it  vibrate  64  to  23,000  times  in  a  second,  and 
we  should  hear  a  sound  rising  gradually  in  pitch;  were 
the  vibration  still  more  rapid  we  should  feel  warmth, 
increasing  to  great  heat;  let  the  number  of  vibrations 
in  a  second  be  increased  to  four  hundred  billions,  and 
the  eye  would  see  a  red  glimmer,  which,  with  greater 
velocity  of  the  molecules,  would  get  lighter  and  lighter, 
passing  through  all  shades  of  color  till  it  reached  the 
incandescent  w^hite  light  which  unites  all  colors  in  itself. 
We  might,  therefore,  say  with  equal  truth,  the  ear  sees 
the  sound  and  the  eye  hears  the  light,  and  we  can  con- 
ceive the  possibility  of  a  being  possessing  one  single 
organ  of  sense,  which  perceives  this  series  of  molecular 
motions  as  an  increased  intensity  of  one  and  the  same 
sensation,  or  as  different  shades  of  one  color. 

By  conservation  of  force  is  understood  the  natural 
law  that  no  force,  not  the  smallest  conceivable  amount  of 
force,  is  ever  lost;  it  is  only  transformed.  For  example, 
the  shell  weighing  five  hundredweight  which  strikes  the 
plate  of  an  ironclad  suddenly  loses  its  motion;  but  in 
place  of  that  there  arises  in  both  a  degree  of  heat  which 
would  produce  exactly  the  former  rate  of  motion,  and 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  71 

the  former  shock;  or  else  a  chemical  change  which 
would  do  the  same,  and  so  on  to  all  eternity. 

This  visible  and  tangible  matter  swims,  however,  in 
a  boundless  and  fathomless  ocean,  consisting  of  a  subtile, 
imponderable,  and  highly-elastic  fluid,  which  has  from 
ancient  times  been  named  the  ether;  the  Hindoos,  the 
Egyptians,  the  Greeks,  believed  that  the  heavenly  bodies 
were  formed  of  it.  Ovid  says  in  his  "Metamorphoses" 
(i,  6f) :  ''Above  the  earth  with  its  atmosphere  God 
spread  out  the  clear,  weightless  ether,  which  has  in  it 
nought  of  the  dregs  of  earth."  This  idea  we  meet  with 
also  in  Plato,  Spinoza,  and  other  philosophers.  Secchi 
has  introduced  to  science  the  ether  (assumed  already  by 
Euler  and  Huyghens)  as  a  fluid  distributed  through  the 
entire  universe,  in  which  all  the  heavenly  bodies  swim, 
by  which  they  are  driven  onward  in  their  orbits;  and  now 
some  physicists  believe  that  each  atom  and  molecule  of 
matter  is  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of  condensed 
ether  (dynamide),  which  emits  force.  We  can  form  no 
conception  of  the  extreme  rarity  of  this  ether.  Babinet 
calculates  that  the  substance  of  which  comets  are  formed 
is  140,000  million  times  lighter  than  our  air,  and  for  this 
reason  he  calls  them  ''des  riens  visiblesf  but  with  regard 
to  the  ether,  some  scientists  speak  of  it  in  virtue  of  vari- 
ous calculations  as  a  substance  six  hundred  billion  times 
lighter  than  any  known  on  earth.  Compared,  therefore, 
with  the  ether,  our  air  is  many  million  times  heavier 
than  gold  is  in  comparison  with  air.  It  must  be  so, 
otherwise  (in  consequence  of  the  resistance  of  this  ether) 
a  perpetual  hurricane  would  blow  everything  on  earth 
off  into  space,  and  the  surface  of  our  planet  would  be  a 
chaos.  ^  ^  ^ 


^^  Science  and  Christianity 

Now  that  we  have  considered  the  substances  met 
with  on  the  earth,  their  combinations  and  the  forces 
by  which  they  are  moved,  and  have  arrived  at  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  the  interesting  question  presents  itself: 
Is  the  matter  with  which  we  on  earth  are  acquainted,  the 
same  as  that  which  forms  the  innumerable  celestial 
bodies?  Is  it  there  subject  to  the  same  laws  and  ani- 
mated by  the  same  forces?  A  hundred  years  ago  there 
did  not  seem  to  be  much  hope  of  the  question  ever 
being  answered;  and  even  Newton,  who  was  able  to 
prove  that  the  law  of  gravitation  holds  good  for  all 
heavenly  bodies,  would  probably  have  smiled  at  the  idea 
of  its  being  possible  to  find  out  whether  salt  or  mercury 
existed  on  a  particular  star.  Who  would  have  believed 
that  each  ray  of  light  for  thousands  of  years  has  con- 
tained certain  information  on  this  point?  Who  knows 
what  knowledge  still  lies  hidden  in  a  ray  of  light? 

Fraunhofer  discovered  in  a  ray  of  light,  decomposed 
and  split  up  into  its  seven  principal  colors,  numerous  fine 
and  thick,  black  and  colored  lines,  the  number  of  which 
soon  grew  to  hundreds  and  now  amounts  to  thousands. 
KirchhofT  and  Bunsen  found  (1859)  that  these  lines  have 
their  origin  in  the  chemical  components  of  the  burning 
or  shining  substance,  and  that  each  element  produces 
particular  invariable  lines,  always  appearing  in  the  same 
place  in  the  spectrum;  sodium,  for  example,  a  light, 
broad,  yellow  line;  thallium,  a  blue;  rubidium,  three 
green  lines,  etc.  Hence  has  arisen  a  method  of  analysis, 
known  as  the  spectrum  analysis. 

We  can  thus  read  distinctly  in  the  smallest  ray  of 
light  which  twinkles  from  the  farthest  fixed  star,  if  oxy- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  73 

gen,  or  gold,  or  iron;  in  short,  any  element  is  found 
there;  if  so,  whether  as  gas  or  Hquid,  hot  or  cold !  Surely 
one  of  the  most  wonderful  facts  in  nature!  One  can 
easily  imagine  with  what  interest  and  eagerness  astron- 
omers set  to  work  to  discover  whether  the  elements  we 
know  are  common  to  the  universe,  or  whether  others 
unknown  to  us  exist  elsewhere.  The  answer  was  sur- 
prising. The  substances  which  form  our  air,  our  water, 
our  stones  and  plants,  our  blood  and  bones,  are  diffused 
throughout  the  universe,  and  are  everywhere  the  same. 
A  grand  and  important  fact  is  this  identity  of  matter — 
an  invisible  bond  of  union  for  all  the  heavenly  bodies. 
How  voluminous  and  far-reaching  this  book  of  light 
is  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  Norman  Lockyer,  the 
celebrated  spectroscopist,  has  been  working  for  years 
at  an  illustration  of  the  solar  spectrum  on  a  large  scale, 
which  is  to  show,  if  possible,  all  the  Fraunhofer  lines. 
The  picture  when  finished  will  be  over  a  hundred  yards 
long;  and  he  required  to  take  above  one  hundred 
thousand  observations  and  about  two  thousand  photo- 
graphs of  the  spectra  of  the  different  elements.  How 
exact  the  indications  are,  is  sho\\m  by  the  following: 
Swan  found  that  spectrum  analysis  indicates  the  pres- 
ence of  the  two-millionth  part  of  a  gram  of  sodium! 
Lang  detected  the  fifty-millionth  of  a  gram  of  thallium ! 
Kirchhoff  and  Bunsen  showed  by  careful  experiments 
that  the  three-thousand-millionth  of  a  gram  of  sodium 
burning  in  a  flame  can  be  clearly  recognized  by  the  spec- 
troscope— a  quantity  which  the  eye  could  not  detect 
with  the  best  microscope — which  does  not  affect  the 
sense  of  smell  or  taste,  which  no  organ  of  sense  and  no 
instrument  of  man's  invention  is  able  to  discern!    There 


74  Science  and  Christianity 

Is  something  truly  awful  in  this  unerring  language  of 
light  which  reveals  things  otherwise  hidden  from  man. 
Lockyer  found,  besides,  that  spectrum  analysis  is  of 
great  service  to  quantitative  analysis;  in  a  compound  of 
gold  and  copper  the  relative  quantity  of  both  metals  was 
ascertained  within  i/iooo.  Again,  Brookes  decomposed 
by  means  of  spectrum  analysis  the  supposed  element, 
yttrium. 

We  are  becoming  more  and  more  expert  at  inter- 
preting the  language  of  light.  Not  only  does  it  describe 
to  us  the  chemical  constituents  of  distant  planets;  not 
only  does  it  tell  us  whether  a  sun  one  thousand  millions 
of  miles  away  is  approaching  or  going  from  us,  and  at 
what  speed  it  is  moving;  but  the  periodic  doubling  of 
certain  lines  tells  whether  what  appears  to  the  strongest 
telescope  as  a  mere  dot  of  light  is  a  single  sun,  or  con- 
sists of  two  or  more  gigantic  bodies  revolving  round  one 
another.  A  case  in  point  is  the  double  star,  Mizar,  the 
middle  star  in  the  axle  of  Charles's  Wain,  which  has  a 
revolution  of  one  hundred  and  five  days,  and  is  equal 
in  mass  to  five  hundred  and  ten  millions  of  earths 
like  ours. 

And  what  a  horizon  is  opened  out  to  us  by  the  amaz- 
ing discovery  of  Professor  Rontgen  of  rays  to  which 
opaque  substances,  paper,  wood,  leather,  are  as  trans- 
parent as  glass.  And  yet  even  this  is  not  absolutely  new ! 
Aristides,  the  friend  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  relates  in  his 
"Sacred  Discourses"  that  he  had  seen  his  internal 
organs.  Hippocrates  and  certain  Egyptian  priests  speak 
of  a  similar  power  of  vision  which  was  possessed  by  some 
somnambulists;  and  an  intimate  friend  of  the  author,  a 
captain  in  the  German  army,  frequently  when  in  society, 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  75 

or  at  a  concert,  saw  for  the  moment  all  those  present  as 
skeletons — a  most  disagreeable  experience.  Here  was 
evidently  something  analagous  to  Rontgen's  discovery, 
though  it  was  regarded  as  a  hallucination. 

It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  importance  of 
the  establishment  of  the  identity  of  matter  in  the  uni- 
verse. As  not  so  very  many  centuries  ago  even  the 
learned  believed  unexplored  countries  to  be  inhabited 
by  human  monsters  with  one  eye,  or  horns,  or  ears 
hanging  to  the  ground,  as  described  in  Mandeville's 
"Livre  des  Merveilles,"  similarly  a  hundred  years  ago 
it  was  thought  possible  that  in  space  there  existed  un- 
known and  mysterious  substances,  conditions,  forces, 
and  phenomena  analogous  to  nothing  on  earth.  As  we 
have  now  recognized  the  fact  that  on  earth  all  types  vary 
only  within  very  narrow  limits,  we  see  more  and  more 
that  in  the  whole  of  creation  a  logical  and  reasonable, 
though  rich  and  varied,  development  of  a  few  funda- 
mental types  is  the  rule.  While  man  seeks  to  attain 
variety  by  extravagant  fancies,  God  produces  by  the 
simplest  means  a  marvelous  richness  and  variety  of 
forms.  Thus  by  simply  varying  the  length  and  the  in- 
clination of  three  axes  the  whole  world  of  crystals  is 
produced !  Thus  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  different 
plants  are  built  up  from  the  simple  cell.  So,  too,  the 
millions  of  suns,  planets,  comets,  in  space  consist  of  a 
few  elements,  almost  all  of  which  are  found  on  the  earth, 
subject  to  the  same  laws  there  as  here.  The  double 
stars  circling  round  each  other  describe  the  same  mathe- 
matical curves  as  the  stone  thrown  up  by  a  child;  there, 
as  here,  hydrogen  and  oxygen  combine  to  form  water, 
which  there,  too,  freezes  or  evaporates  according  to  the 


76  Science  and  Christianity 

temperature.  There,  as  here,  iron  rusts  in  the  presence 
of  oxygen,  and  forms  oxide  of  iron;  there,  too,  color  is 
produced  by  the  vibrations  of  the  ether,  and  a  mixture 
of  yellow  and  blue  gives  green.  Spectrum  analysis  tells 
us  that  copper,  lead,  mercury,  iron,  gold,  salt,  etc.,  exist 
there  too,  and  the  meteorites  which  have  fallen  on  the 
earth  show  that  throughout  the  universe  these  sub- 
stances crystallize  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  our 
crystallography.  In  short,  we  know  now  that,  as  far  as 
space  and  matter  reach,  twice  two  makes  four,  and  the 
three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  together  equal  to  two  right 
angles;  or,  in  other  words,  God  has  one  and  the  same 
mathematics,  physics,  mechanics,  and  chemistry  for  all 
creation. 

There  is  one  more  great  fact  which  the  ray  of  light 
seems  to  be  about  to  disclose.  The  four,  or  according 
to  the  latest  idea  five,  types  of  fixed  stars  show  an  ascend- 
ing scale  of  temperatures  from  the  red  up  to  the  white; 
but,  strange  to  say,  also  a  continual  simplification  or 
dissociation  of  the  elements.  In  the  hottest  suns  the 
line  of  hydrogen  has  gained  so  considerably  in  promi- 
nence that  Lockyer  questions  whether  it  is  not  possible 
that,  with  a  suf^cient  degree  of  heat,  all  our  so-called 
elements  might  be  resolved  into  this  fundamental  form 
of  matter.  This  is  a  great  thought.  As  the  greatest  dis- 
covery of  this  century  is  the  unity  and  the  conservation 
of  force,  the  next  may  see  the  discovery  of  the  unity  of 
matter !  Even  if  that  fact  were  established,  however,  it 
would  not  mean  the  attainment  of  the  long-sought  art 
of  the  transmutation  of  metals,  or  the  fabrication  of  gold 
and  diamonds,  as  we  shall  probably  never  be  able  to 
generate  the  requisite  amount  of  heat  for  the  dissoci- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  77 

ation  of  metals,  such  as  exists  on  the  fixed  stars.  It  is 
surely  not  in  God's  purpose  that  man  should  be  able  to 
free  himself  from  those  conditions  of  existence  whose 
suspension  would  be  fraught  with  such  serious  conse- 
quences to  the  development  of  humanity,  the  least  of 
which  would  be  the  almost  total  depreciation  of  the 
precious  metals  and  stones. 


The  microscope  has  contributed  in  the  same  way  to 
a  grand  and  simplified  understanding  of  the  animal  and 
vegetable  world.  By  its  means  we  have  discovered  that 
the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  plants  of  all  kinds, 
their  roots  and  their  leaves,  their  flowers  and  fruit,  are 
built  up  from  one  single  form,  the  cell.  This  is  a  little 
bag  made  of  a  horny  substance,  sometimes  microscopic- 
ally small,  sometimes  several  millimetres  long,  either 
with  very  thin  walls  as  in  the  strawberry,  or  thick  as  in 
the  peach-stone;  of  various  colors,  according  as  it  is  filled 
with  air  alone,  as  in  the  lily  and  all  white  flowers;  or  with 
fluids  of  different  colors;  or,  as  in  grass  and  leaves,  with 
a  colorless  juice,  in  which  swim  innumerable  green  gran- 
ules of  chlorophyll.  These  cells  originate  in  the  pollen 
as  dainty,  independent,  ribbed,  many-sided  globules, 
forming  hexagons  through  mutual  pressure,  as  in  the 
pith  of  the  elder;  or,  lengthening,  into  cylinders,  as  in 
stems;  or,  by  resorption  of  the  partitions,  becoming  long 
vessels  or  tubes.  On  their  surface  pores  are  formed  to 
facilitate  the  sucking  in  and  giving  out  of  the  liquid 
nourishment,  and  these  pores,  too,  unite  and  form  long 
spiral  slits;  while  the  thickening  of  the  partition  becomes 


78  Science  and  Christianity 

little  windows,  steps,  and  spirals,  as  in  ferns  and  balsams. 
The  cell,  nothing  but  the  cell,  is  the  material  of  which 
God  has  constructed  alike  the  mushroom  and  the  palm, 
the  rose,  seaweed,  and  moss,  the  potato  and  the  grape. 

The  animal  kingdom  is  as  simply  built  up,  also  of 
millions  of  microscopic  cells.  Our  hairs,  and  the  ex- 
quisitely fine  ones  of  the  mouse  and  the  bat,  are  cells, 
as  well  as  our  heart  and  brain,  bones  and  skin,  and  mill- 
ions of  cells  flow  in  our  veins  as  blood-corpuscles.  And 
as  matter  is  composed  of  millions  of  atoms,  and  the  heav- 
ens filled  with  millions  of  stars,  our  world,  the  air,  the 
water,  and  the  earth,  are,  the  microscope  teaches  us, 
filled  with  millions  and  bilHons  of  single  cells,  of  whose 
very  existence  humanity  was  for  thousands  of  years  un- 
aware, each  one  a  germ,  an  egg,  a  seed,  a  being  not 
animal  and  not  plant,  yet  gifted  with  extraordinary 
energy,  causing  frightful  poisons,  destroying  millions  of 
fish  in  the  sea,  of  plants  and  insects  on  land;  and  men, 
too,  fall  like  grass  before  the  sickle  when  they  make  their 
appearance  as  plague,  black  death,  cholera.  Mysterious 
and  weird  beings!  Such  cells  filled  with  the  ten- 
millionth  of  a  drop  produce  invisible  seeds,  or  split  up, 
many  of  them  hourly,  into  two,  four,  eight,  sixteen,  etc., 
a  degree  of  fertility  otherwise  unheard  of.  What  are 
plants  which  produce  thirty  million  descendants  in  the 
third  year,  or  a  fish  with  six  million  eggs  to  these 
monads,  bacteria,  microbes,  bacilli,  a  hundred  millions 
of  which  would  be  contained  in  a  cubic  millimeter,  and 
which  engender  in  twenty-four  hours  sixteen  and  one- 
half  millions,  in  two  days  two  hundred  and  eighty-one 
billions,  in  three  days  forty-seven  trillions! 

We  find  that  the  more  we  penetrate  on  the  one  hand 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  79 

into  the  depths  of  earthly  substances  and  organisms,  on 
the  other  into  the  infinities  of  the  universe,  everywhere 
we  find  greater  knowledge  coincide  with  simplification, 
with  a  reduction  to  a  few  substances,  forces,  forms,  not 
to  say  one  substance,  one  force,  one  form.  Thus  cre- 
ation culminates  in  the  great  One;  philosophically  con- 
sidered an  important  fact. 

From  an  extended  knowledge  of  matter,  its  forces 
and  its  laws,  have  resulted  the  discoveries  which  astonish 
mankind,  the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone, 
etc.  These,  and  others  which  have  not  yet  become  com- 
mon property,  or  which,  though  guessed  at,  are  not  yet 
discovered,  will  during;  the  next  hundred  years  give  an 
entirely  different  aspect  to  the  world  and  the  outward 
life  of  the  individual. 

Our  improved  physical  science  has  enabled  us  to 
construct  wonderful  machines  like  the  phonograph,  the 
photophone  (which  reproduces  at  a  great  distance  by 
reflection  words  spoken  into  a  flame),  telephone,  micro- 
phone, and  megaphone  (invented  by  Edison,  by  means 
of  which  one  can  converse  at  a  distance  of  three  kilo- 
meters). These  apparatus  react  instructively  upon  our 
knowledge,  and  teach  us  how  nearly  connected  are 
sound,  light,  and  electricity;  how  unlimited  their  effects; 
how  they  act  far  beyond  the  cognizance  of  our  senses; 
how  sounds  can  be  mechanically  produced  and  fixed  by 
undulatory  lines,  so  that  in  future  times  grandchildren 
will  be  able  to  hear,  as  often  as  they  like,  the  voice  of 
their  long-dead  grandfather.  Munchausen's  horn,  with 
its  frozen  tones,  has  become  a  marvelous  reality ! 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  full  of  importance  to 
the  unprejudiced  thinker,  that  modern  scientific  thought 


8o  Science  and  Christianity 

draws  ever  nearer  to  the  mystic.  That  our  softly-spoken 
word  resounds  through  space,  and,  having  gone  all 
round  the  globe,  returns  to  us;  that  the  air  is  an  immense 
phonograph;  that  all  life  on  earth  is  the  product  of  the 
efifluvia  of  the  stars,  and  especially  of  the  sun;  that  the 
ether  which  fills  all  space  is  the  source  of  all  force;  that 
force  is  light,  and  light  is  force;  that  all  the  elements  are 
derivatives  of  one  pure  element;  that  there  is  a  ray  of 
light,  and  consequently  a  vision,  which  pierces  opaque 
bodies;  that  fire  reveals  the  innermost  nature  of  all 
things;  that  number  and  numerical  relations  lie  at  the 
root  of  all  the  properties  of  matter, — are  truths  at  the 
recognition  of  which  science  has  been  gradually  arriv- 
ing; though  when  enunciated  by  mystic  philosophers, 
Jacob  Boehme  in  particular,  they  were  treated  as  ab- 
surdities, and  those  who  propounded  them  considered 
as  hardly  of  sound  mind. 

Let  us  consider  the  practical  result  to  our  civilization 
of  this  simplified  view  of  nature  and  natural  laws.  It  is 
manifested  often  most  clearly  where  we  least  suspect  it; 
for  instance,  in  our  use  of  paper  and  iron.  Where  should 
we  be  in  this  nineteenth  century  without  them?  Paper 
has  always  been  highly  venerated  in  China,  the  country 
of  its  origin,  as  the  thought-bearing  material,  the  essen- 
tial substance.  It  made  its  way  very  slowly  to  the  rest 
of  the  world.  It  reached  Samarcand  in  A.  D.  650,  Bag- 
dad in  the  year  800,  Cairo  in  1 100,  and  not  till  1340  was 
the  first  paper  manufactory  founded  in  France.  And 
only  in  this  century  have  we  begun  to  imitate  the  Chi- 
nese in  making  it  of  wood,  straw,  and  grass,  from  trees, 
such  as  pines,  willows,  and  poplars.  It  is  not  quite  evi- 
dent why  we  make  so  much  more  use  of  paper  than  our 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  8i 

ancestors.  It  is  not  that  we  think  more;  but  that  we 
think  not  for  ourselves,  but  with  and  for  others.  In- 
stead of  communicating  our  thoughts  and  impressions 
in  the  rare  but  long  letters  of  our  forefathers,  we  scatter 
them  broadcast  on  post-cards.  We  arrive  at  Naples — 
make  an  excursion  to  Capri.  We  must  send  a  post-card 
home.  "Just  seen  the  blue  grotto;  perfectly  wonder- 
ful !  Pure  cobalt  and  ultramarine.  Boat-hire  a  regular 
swindle;  five  lire  an  hour!  Addio!  More  to-morrow 
from  Vesuvius."  In  this  way  impressions  evaporate, 
the  memory  fades,  and  the  intended  letter  is  never  writ- 
ten. Letter-writing  as  it  was  in  the  last  century  is  a  lost 
art,  elbowed  out  of  the  way  by  post-cards  and  letter- 
cards.  It  is  the  same  with  books.  "On  ne  lit  plus  les 
livres,*'  is  the  complaint  of  Parisian  booksellers.  The 
light  novel,  magazines  of  all  kinds,  and,  above  all,  the 
newspaper,  are  taking  the  place  of  books;  people  acquire 
a  superficial  knowledge  of  all  subjects  from  epitomes, 
abridged  editions,  and  newspaper  articles  and  criticisms, 
a  more  than  doubtful  advantage.  In  the  coming  century, 
no  doubt,  paper  will  play  a  still  more  important  part. 
The  Americans  make  of  it  wheels,  casks,  vases,  and  rac- 
ing-boats; the  dome  of  Greenwich  Observatory  and  that 
of  the  Palais  de  Justice  at  Brussels  are  solidly  and  lightly 
built  of  papier-mache,  and  the  Corporation  of  London 
has  recommended  its  employment  for  public  buildings. 
In  iron,  or,  rather,  steel,  which  can  be  produced 
quite  as  cheaply,  we  have  the  necessary  backbone  and 
counterpoise  to  paper.  We  live  in  an  iron  age.  A 
knight  of  old  protected  himself  from  hostile  spears 
with  sixty  pounds  of  iron.  To-day  we  protect  ships 
and  towers  with  millions  of  pounds  of  steel,  with  plates 
6 


82  Science  and  Christianity 

half  a  yard  thick,  each  weighing  about  sixty  thousand 
pounds,  and  costing  about  £3,000,  against  five  hundred- 
pound  shells  from  cannon  weighing  eighty  thousand 
pounds.  Besides  this  we  encircle  the  earth  with  a  net- 
work of  iron  wires  and  steel  rails,  on  which,  day  and 
night,  run  thousands  of  iron  horses,  while  huge  levi- 
athans of  steel  swim  through  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 

In  all  ages  the  combat  with  fire  and  metal  has  had 
great  attractions  for  mankind.  The  smith  has  always 
been  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  hero,  the  first,  Tubal- 
Cain,  being  worshiped  as  a  god  by  the  Romans.  But 
what  were  the  forges  of  olden  times  to  the  furnaces  of 
Armstrong  or  Krupp,  or  their  sledges  to  the  giant 
steam-hammers  weighing  over  nine  hundred  tons,  which 
shake  the  earth  for  three  miles  round,  at  whose  blows 
houses  totter;  to  the  hydraulic  presses,  with  a  pressure 
of  four  thousand  tons,  which  compress,  bend,  or  cut 
like  dough  iron  plates  twenty  feet  long  and  a  foot  thick? 
Enormous  cranes,  worked  by  electricity,  move  back- 
wards and  forwards,  lifting  and  carrying  cast-iron  and 
steel  blocks  two  hundred  and  fifty  tons  in  weight;  and 
at  the  same  time  these  iron  works,  with  their  colossal 
machinery,  are  capable  of  turning  out  the  finest  work. 
The  enormous  steam-hammers  could  easily  crack  a  hazel- 
nut without  damaging  the  kernel.  Huge  bars  of  steel 
are  fixed  upon  lathes,  to  be  turned  perfectly  smooth, 
and  centered  by  means  of  the  Palmer  wheel  to  within 
one-hundredth  of  a  millimeter. 

While  in  the  last  century  a  furnace  twelve  feet  high 
yielded  two  to  three  thousand  pounds  a  day,  one  sev- 
enty-five feet  high,  and  broad  in  proportion,  at  the 
present  day  yields  more  than  two  thousand  hundred- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  83 

weight.  Every  hour  its  iron  throat  swallows  about  two 
hundred  and  seventy  hundredweight  of  ore  and  coke, 
and  gives  out  every  two  hours  two  hundred  hundred- 
weight of  liquid  metal;  and  that  goes  on  unceasingly, 
day  and  night,  Sundays  and  holidays,  for  the  furnace 
must  not  be  allowed  to  go  out  during  the  whole  term 
of  its  life,  which  is  about  fifteen  years.  Then  it  is  extin- 
guished and  broken  up.  Large  iron  works  possess  seven 
to  nine  of  these  furnaces,  producing  daily  nearly  four- 
teen hundred  tons  of  metal. 

And  yet  all  these  substances — iron  and  steel,  copper, 
zinc,  aluminium,  the  offspring  of  one  unknown  parent, 
perhaps  of  the  mysterious  ethereal  hydrogen,  perhaps 
of  the  passionate,  insatiable  oxygen  (for  Professor 
Dewar  says  that  solid  oxygen  is  subject  to  magnetic 
attraction) — are  agents,  media  of  force.  Iron  and  steel, 
metals  altogether,  are  the  tough  and  yet  flexible,  mal- 
leable and  elastic  forms  of  matter  which  are  best 
adapted  to  be  the  instruments  of  force  and  forces;  and 
for  this  reason,  were  there  no  metals,  there  would  be 
no  civilization — a  fact  which  the  son  of  Lamech  fore- 
saw by  intuition  when  he  compelled  brass  and  iron,  by 
the  power  of  fire,  to  come  out  of  their  earthly  wrapping, 
and  become  to  man  the  instruments  of  force. 

Force!  That  is  what  we  stand  in  need  of.  We 
can  not  have  too  much  of  it.  We  have  discovered  how 
tractable  and  serviceable  this  force  is  which  shines  as 
light,  glows  as  heat,  flashes  in  the  lightning;  in  the 
sunbeam  warms  the  earth,  makes  vegetation  to  grow, 
and  ripens  the  fruit;  which  sounds  in  the  organ  and 
vibrates  in  the  fiddle-string;  which  now  rushes  in  the 
waterfall,  now,  invisible,  in  giant  cylinders  drives  the 


84  Science  and  Christianity 

ship's  screw,  now  slumbers  in  gunpower  and  dynamite 
till,  when  roused  by  a  spark  or  the  slightest  concussion, 
it  deals  destruction  to  all  around.  Every  town,  every 
village,  desires  to  possess  as  much  as  possible  of  this 
force  to  light  its  streets,  to  warm  its  houses,  to  plow 
its  fields,  mow  and  thresh  its  corn;  for  in  this  century 
horse  and  ox  are  altogether  too  slow  for  us.  We  re- 
quire beasts  of  draught  and  burden  of  steel,  animated 
by  lightning,  without  wills  or  wants,  which  neither  be- 
come ill  nor  infirm,  and  which,  when  worn  out,  can  be 
thrown  back  into  the  furnace. 

The  steam-engine  did  as  a  stepping-stone  from  the 
picturesque  moss-covered  water-wheel;  but  it  may  soon 
be  thrown  away  as  old  iron,  and  the  smoky,  noisy,  sooty 
locomotive  too.  Why  bring  coal  from  great  distances 
at  enormous  expense  to  transform  it  into  force,  with 
considerable  waste  in  smoke  and  ashes?  The  world 
is  full  of  force.  W^herever  a  brooklet  rushes,  a 
river  flows;  wherever  the  wind  whistles  over  deso- 
late heath  or  round  mountain-peak;  where  the  sea 
surges  in  ebb  and  flow, — there  is  force.  And  it 
is  possible  to  grasp  it  and  change  it  into  electricity,  the 
cleanest  (smoke  and  soot  are  not  only  unpleasant  waste, 
but  also  a  loss  of  force)  and  most  unmaterial  of  all 
forces,  not  the  least  advantage  of  which  is  that  it  can 
be,  at  will,  transported,  conducted,  and  stored  in  ac- 
cumulators. In  the  near  future  the  Falls  of  the  Rhine 
will  aid  a  shoemaker  in  Basle  to  sole  his  shoes,  a  farmer 
at  Constance  to  plow  his  fields,  and  a  student  at  Zurich 
to  light  and  heat  his  study. 

In  former  ages  a  force  was  local,  and  man  was 
obliged  to  go  to  its  source.    These  forces  are  compar- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  85 

able  to  the  heavy  iron  money  of  the  Spartans.     With 
coal  and  steam  the  gold  coinage  of  force  came  into  cir- 
culation.   Electricity  represents  its  notes  and  cheques. 
The  present  century  will  be  the  era  of  electricity.  We 
can  easily  foresee  what  great  services  it  will  render  to 
man  in  the  future.     Firstly,   as   the  most   convenient 
source  of  hght  and  heat.     One  can,  according  to  Pro- 
fessor Haussermann,  generate  by  its  means  a  heat  of 
three  thousand  degrees,  while  the  flame  of  hydrogen 
does  not  exceed  eighteen  hundred  degrees.     This  de- 
gree of  heat,  which  melts  quartz,  will   serve   to  pro- 
duce the  carbides,  carborandum  (a  substance  almost  as 
hard  as  the  diamond),  and  calcium-carbide,  an  all-im- 
portant factor  in  the  production  of  alcohol  from  in- 
organic matter.     Its  most  astonishing  application  will, 
however,   be   in   electrolysis    (discovered   by    Davy   in 
1807),  the  separation  of  elements  by  the  electric  cur- 
rent into  negative  and  positive,  which  lays  the  founda- 
tion of  an  electrical  chemistry.     One  result  of  electroly- 
sis already  attained  is  electro-metallurgy,  the  art  of  coat- 
ing with  precious  metal  in  the  electric  bath  a  body  of 
any  shape,  so  that  the  nucleus  can  be  drawn  out  and 
the  hollow  form  remains.     Still  more  important  is  the 
chemical  separation  by  its  means,  as  in  the  separation 
of  aluminium  from  clay.     The  electric  current  is  em- 
ployed, too,  in  the  rapid  bleaching  of  wool,  linen,  wax, 
and  paper;  in  the  purification,  by  decomposition,  of  the 
contents  of  the  sewers  of  our  towns;  in  the  tanning  of 
leather,  the  ripening  of  fruit,  the  giving  an  old  bouquet 
to  new  wine,  even  the  artificial  aging  of  wood  for  the 
manufacture  of  valuable  violins.     It  will  no  doubt  find 
its  most  important  use  in  the  decomposition  of  water 


86  Science  and  Christianity 

into  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  and  so  cheaply  that  this  de- 
composed water  will  become  the  fuel  of  the  future. 
Here  is  a  simple  and  inexhaustible  substitute  for  coal, 
which  we  know  must  sooner  or  later  be  exhausted. 

It  will  also  serve  as  gunpowder.  The  hardest  rocks 
have  already  been  blasted  in  Germany  with  cartridges 
twenty  centimeters  long,  filled  with  water,  which  the 
electric  current  decomposed  in  forty  hours  into  hydro- 
gen and  oxygen.  This  is  then  ignited  by  the  electric 
spark.  It  is  easy  to  foresee  that  this  mysterious  agent 
will,  in  the  future,  be  applied  to  all  kinds  of  domestic 
labor — it  will,  in  fact,  become  our  maid-of-all-work — 
and  no  doubt  men  will  invent  all  sorts  of  uses  for  it, 
ingenious  and  absurd.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the 
traveler  of  the  future  will  carry  a  store  of  it  in  his  knap- 
sack to  aid  him  in  crossing  a  river  or  climbing  a  moun- 
tain. 

Electricity,  then,  will  quicken  the  pace  at  which  we 
live,  and  play  so  indispensable  a  part  that  our  grand- 
children will  wonder  how  ever  their  forefathers  managed 
to  exist  without  it. 

And  yet  all  these  forces — water  and  steam,  heat 
and  electricity — are  only  derivatives,  products,  of  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  the  only  source  of  energy  to  us.  Every 
square  meter  on  which  the  sun  shines  receives  numerous 
calories.  (The  quantity  of  heat  necessary  to  raise  the 
temperature  of  a  kilo  of  water  one  degree,  and  which, 
transformed  into  force,  would  raise  four  hundred  and 
twenty-five  kilos — about  eight  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
— one  meter  in  a  second,  is,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
called  a  calorie.)  As  far  as  we  know,  all  those  which 
fall  on  the  sandy  deserts  of  the  earth,  on  the  roofs  of 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  87 

our  towns,  are  so  much  loss  of  heat.  If  we  under- 
stood the  art — and  we  shall  learn  it — of  turning  to  ac- 
count all  these  millions  of  calories,  we  could  literally 
heat  our  houses  in  winter  with  the  superfluous  heat  of 
summer,  which  would  mean,  too,  a  lowering  of  the 
summer  temperature.  A  very  small  proportion  of  the 
heat  of  Egypt  would  be  sufficient  to  work  all  the  rail- 
ways and  ships  in  the  Nile  Valley.  If  we  should  one 
day  find  it  possible  to  water  the  Sahara  and  the  Soudan 
by  means  of  solar  pumps,  we  should  only  be  doing  in 
little  what  the  sun  does  every  day  on  a  large  scale,  since 
it  draws  daily  from  the  Dead  Sea  alone  four  million 
tons  of  water  to  a  height  of  several  thousand  meters, 
whence  it  falls  again  to  water  the  earth;  for  the  bright 
beams  with  which  the  sun  warms  and  enlightens  us, 
ripens  the  corn  and  the  fruit,  and  paints  the  flowers, 
are  rays  of  force.  The  quantity  of  the  sun-force  which 
our  little  earth  receives  in  a  year — a  tiny  fraction  of 
that  which  is  diffused  continually  through  space — 
amounts  to  over  two  hundred  and  seventeen  millions 
of  millions  horse-power.  These  rays,  in  their  action 
on  vegetation  alone,  produce  effects  millions  of  times 
greater  than  all  our  machines.  It  will  be  the  dream 
of  future  engineers  to  draw  direct  from  this  source 
of  all  force;  and,  for  example,  to  convert  isolation  into 
electricity  for  the  driving  of  electric  trains  in  the  Sahara, 
etc.  We  shall  undoubtedly  come  back  by  degrees  to 
this  center  of  energy,  with  the  result  that  the  tide  of 
human  life  will  flow  slowly  back  to  the  sunny  lands, 
whose  inhabitants — Egyptians,  Assyrians,  Carthagin- 
ians— were  once  the  leaders  of  mankind. 


88  Science  and  Christianity 

The  germs  of  the  future  He  in  the  present.  Let  us 
consider  the  probable  logical  evolution  of  these  germs — 
without  reference  to  Biblical  prophecy  on  the  one  hand, 
or  social  problems,  their  influence  and  solution,  on  the 
other — and  draw  an  imaginary  but  not  impossible  pic- 
ture of  the  material  development  of  the  world  in  the 
coming  century. 

In  the  first  place,  internal  and  international  com- 
munication and  traffic  will  attain  dimensions  undreamed 
of.  World-lines  will  be  laid,  with  a  gauge  of  ten  meters, 
and  double  or  triple  rails  to  obviate  accidents,  from 
London  to  Pekin,  from  Petersburg  to  Cape  Town, 
etc.  On  these  will  run,  at  a  speed  of  one  hundred  to 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  an  hour,  electric  trains,  con- 
sisting of  single  palatial  carriages,  like  great  hotels, 
fitted  with  every  comfort  and  convenience.  To  these 
will  be  attached  the  traveling  villa  of  the  future,  built 
of  aluminium,  bronze,  ixium,  or  papier-mache,  the 
walls  filled  with  celluloid  to  exclude  heat  and  cold, 
luxuriously  furnished,  lighted  and  heated  by  electricity, 
with  a  garden  on  the  roof,  in  which  the  private  gentle- 
man, the  engineer,  and  the  commercial  traveler  will 
be  able  to  transport  himself,  with  wife  and  family,  to 
any  spot  on  the  globe. 

Side  by  side  with  these  lines,  others,  more  massive, 
will  carry  the  commerce  of  the  world  in  enormous  store- 
wagons  and  reservoirs  with  a  capacity  of  a  thousand 
cubic  yards,  containing  corn,  oil,  wine,  petroleum,  etc., 
while  commodities  such  as  timber,  ore,  granite,  and 
other  kinds  of  stone,  will  be  conveyed  in  the  cheapest 
way,  by  the  regular  winds. 

On  the  ocean,  as  well  as  on  land,  definite  routes 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  89 

will  be  established — for  example,  between  Bordeaux 
and  Panama,  London  and  the  Cape,  Liverpool  and  New 
York — illuminated  by  floating  lighthouses  of  steel 
firmly  anchored,  showing  the  great  liners  the  way  they 
must  take  by  a  white  light  on  one  side  and  red  on  the 
other;  while  the  smaller  vessels  will  be  obliged  to  keep 
to  the  sides  of  the  route,  thus  avoiding  collisions.  These 
lighthouses  will  serve  at  the  same  time  as  storehouses, 
telegraph  and  news  offices,  and  salvage  stations.  Be- 
sides floating  palaces  and  giant  storeships  for  the  trans- 
port of  passengers  and  goods,  the  oceans  will  be  dotted 
with  the  yachts  of  private  individuals,  seeking,  on  the 
sea,  rest  and  recreation  for  their  overwrought  nerves. 
This  yacht  of  the  future,  as  described  by  the  author 
in  the  paper  "Le  Yacht"  (1884)  will  resemble  a  water- 
beetle,  now  dancing  lightly  on  the  surface,  then,  at  the 
approach  of  a  storm,  or  in  order  to  explore  the  won- 
ders of  the  deep,  drawing  in  sails  and  masts,  and  sink- 
ing, watertight,  to  the  bottom,  where  it  will  crawl  on 
its  way.  By  means  of  dynamos  it  will  be  able  to  climb 
on  land,  and,  adapting  itself  to  the  railway  lines,  will 
be  carried,  by  wind  or  electricity,  over  continents,  to 
take  part  in  races  on  the  ice-runs  at  the  North  or  South 
Pole.  How  far  advanced  we  are  already  from  the  state 
of  things  in  England  in  1669,  when  no  mail-coach  was 
allowed  to  run  oftener  than  once  a  week,  or  more  than 
thirty  miles  a  day ! 

And  how  easy  everything  will  be  made  for  tourists ! 
Tickets  will  be  issued  available  for  a  year  on  all  lines 
by  land  and  sea,  with  blue,  red,  or  yellow  coupons,  ac- 
cording to  class,  for  twenty-four  hours'  board,  inclusive 
6f  everything,   at  any  hotel.     Imagination   runs   riot 


90  Science  and  Christianity 

among  the  possible  attractions  to  be  advertised  by  the 
proprietors  of  the  future  Polar,  submarine,  or  mountain 
hotels. 

Let  us  hope  that  these  increased  facilities  of  loco- 
motion, in  themselves  unproductive,  will  eventually  lead 
to  a  universal  cultivation  of  the  earth;  for  all  systems 
and  theories  can  not  alter  the  fact  that  man  can  not 
live  on  coal,  iron,  or  glass.  He  requires  corn,  oil,  wine, 
and  meat  for  food;  cotton,  wool,  leather,  for  clothing; 
and  agriculture,  cattle-rearing,  and  fishery  must  always 
form  the  staple  of  existence.  It  would  be  a  grand  thing 
for  the  world  if  the  nations  would  conclude  a  peace, 
if  only  for  a  certain  number  of  years.  Then  the  millions 
of  strong  and  active  young  men,  who  spend  their  best 
years  in  practicing  the  noble  but  costly  art  of  war, 
might  be  employed,  as  were  occasionally  the  Roman 
soldiers,  in  various  useful  works.  They  might  drive 
the  fever  from  Mesopotamia  by  the  planting  of  a  few 
milHon  eucalyptus  trees,  then  drain  it  and  build  towns, 
making  the  land  what  it  was  in  olden  times,  a  granary 
and  garden  of  the  world;  and  by  international  arrange- 
ment it  might  be  colonized  by  the  importation  of  thou- 
sands of  the  unemployed,  discontented,  and  unproduc- 
tive men  who  fill  our  great  cities  to  overflowing.  That 
completed,  our  regiments  might  then  go  to  work  at 
the  rebuilding  of  Carthage  and  the  colonization  of  the 
once  fruitful  country  of  Northern  Africa.  Here,  too,  is 
room  for  millions.  Then  might  follow  the  irrigation 
of  the  Sahara  by  artesian  wells  and  the  planting  of  date- 
palms,  so  that  a  sack  of  this  wholesome  and  nourishing 
fruit  would  be  cheaper  than  a  sack  of  potatoes.  The 
French  have  already  made  a  beginning  with  five  hun- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  91 

dred  wells  and  half  a  million  palms.  There  would  re- 
main the  cultivation  of  the  greater  part  of  South  Amer- 
ica, the  establishment  of  waterways  and  railroads 
through  the  vast  forest  between  the  Orinoco  and  the 
Amazon,  and  the  tillage  of  the  Pampas  by  means  of 
electric  plows,  sowing  and  reaping  machines.  Then 
we  should  have  nothing  to  fear  from  overpopulation 
for  the  next  few  centuries.  It  has  been  calculated 
that  the  earth,  properly  cultivated,  would  provide  space 
and  food  for  forty  times  the  inhabitants  it  has  at  pres- 
ent. And  for  the  beautifying  of  the  world  and  the 
benefit  of  mankind  a  few  thousand  million  fruit-trees 
of  various  kinds  might  be  planted  on  islands  and  moors, 
on  prairies  and  steppes  and  mountain-sides,  from  the 
cocoa-palm  and  the  banana  to  the  pear.  Another  work 
for  the  quondam  warriors  would  be  the  digging  of  va- 
rious canals;  in  the  first  place,  at  Panama,  the  cross- 
roads for  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  where  would 
soon  arise  a  city  of  Mammon,  which  would  form  also, 
in  a  spiritual  sense,  the  Antipodes  of  Jerusalem,  the 
true  center  of  the  world.  Canals  would  also  be  of  great 
service  between  Bordeaux  and  Marseilles,  Leith  and 
Glasgow,  between  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Baltic,  the 
Black  Sea  and  the  Caspian.  The  sea  might  be,  in  the 
same  way,  brought  to  Paris,  Rome,  and  Berlin;  and 
immense  bridges  of  ixium,  the  metal  of  the  future,  might 
connect  France  and  England,  Italy  and  Sicily,  India 
and  Ceylon. 

Were  it  not  that  humanity  is  too  greatly  possessed 
by  the  demons  of  avarice,  egoism,  hatred,  and  envy, 
these  great  projects  might  be  realized,  if  not  by  armies 
which  have  lost  their  occupation,  yet  by  companies  who 


92  Science  and  Christianity 

could  promise  their  shareholders  handsome  dividends. 
In  any  case,  the  principle  of  association  will  be  car- 
ried to  great  lengths  in  the  coming  century.  We  have 
hardly  begun  to  realize  what  it  is  possible  to  accomplish 
by  the  concentration  of  the  capital,  the  influence,  and 
the  work  of  ten  thousand  men  on  one  object.  This 
principle  will  probably  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  town 
of  the  future.  Built  after  a  uniform  plan,  in  accordance 
with  the  rules  of  hygiene  and  police  regulations,  it  will 
become,  by  degrees,  a  block  of  similar  dwellings,  cov- 
ered, perhaps,  by  an  immense  glass  roof,  having  in  the 
center  an  accumulator  of  electricity  which  will  dispense 
to  the  whole  light,  heat,  and  force.  This  picture  may 
appear  fantastic  and  overdrawn;  but  the  future  will  see 
things  just  as  wonderful.  A  hundred  years  ago  rail- 
ways were  denounced  as  unhealthful,  dangerous,  im- 
practical. The  cry  was  that  they  ought  at  any  rate  to 
be  fenced  ofif  by  wooden  partitions.  We  are  at  all  times 
and  in  all  things  men  of  little  faith. 

The  results  of  association  will  be  felt,  too,  in  private 
and  domestic  life.  In  the  year  2000  it  will  appear  almost 
incredible  that  at  one  time,  in  a  town  of  one  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  every  day,  ten  thousand  maids 
in  ten  thousand  kitchens  lighted,  with  great  trouble, 
ten  thousand  fires,  producing  smoke,  soot,  and  ashes, 
in  order  to  cook  thirty  thousand  meals,  which  could 
be  cooked  much  more  cleanly,  quickly,  and  cheaply  by 
five  hundred  cooks  in  a  central  kitchen  with  electric 
stoves.  We  see,  for  example,  how,  on  board  a  man-of- 
war,  four  or  five  men  do  well  and  quickly  the  cooking 
for  six  or  seven  hundred. 

The  heating  of  our  houses,  too,  will  undergo  a  com- 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  93 

plete  revolution.  The  day  of  fireplaces  and  stoves  will 
soon  be  over.  Large  globes  of  opaque  glass,  in  which 
burns  decomposed  water,  will  act  as  suns  to  the  dwell- 
ings, the  heat  being  regulated  at  will;  and  our  great 
grandchildren  will  look  upon  chimneys  and  chimney- 
sweeps, which  they  will  only  know  from  picture-books, 
as  hideous  relics  of  a  barbarous  nineteenth  century. 


It  is  easy  to  predict  that  intercommunication  on 
this  gigantic  scale  will  lead  to  an  international  similar- 
ity and  community  of  thought  and  feeling.  Cosmo- 
politanism will  be  the  standpoint  of  the  educated 
classes.  Barriers  will  fall,  and  distinctions  cease  to  ex- 
ist. The  leading  nations — English  and  Germans, 
French  and  Russians — will  extend  their  geographical 
boundaries  more  and  more,  seeking  in  further  coloni- 
zation a  safety  valve  for  their  expanding  power.  And 
the  yellow  race,  with  its  five  hundred  millions — a  third 
of  mankind — it  is  not  impossible  that  it  will  follow  their 
example,  and,  pouring  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  through 
the  Nicaragua  Canal,  overrun  the  South  American  Con- 
tinent. 

And  this  spreading  of  nations  will  lead  to  new  con- 
flicts, and,  sooner  or  later,  if  not  in  Europe,  the  inter- 
ests of  France  and  Germany  will  collide  in  Africa,  and 
those  of  England,  Russia,  and  Japan  in  Asia.  One 
of  the  principal  features  of  the  future  will  be  a  world 
press,  which  will  call  forth  a  world-feeling  for  the  same 
world  interests;  and  by  that  means  the  final,  decisive 
conflicts  for  the  mastery  among  humanity  en  masse 


94  Science  and  Christianity 

and  against  God  will  be  made  possible.     And  the  gos- 
pel will  be  preached  to  every  creature. 

We  may  expect,  as  a  natural  consequence  of  such 
intercourse,  that  all  languages  will  be  much  modified, 
influencing  and  permeating  each  other  so  that  they  will 
gain  in  generality  and  objectivity,  and  lose  in  subjec- 
tivity and  individuality.  Grammar  and  orthography 
will  become  simpler,  but  at  the  same  time  poorer  and 
more  stereotyped;  and  yet  the  language  will  grow 
richer  in  psychological  expression.  Hundreds  of  new 
words  for  new  machines,  appliances,  weapons,  clothing, 
animals,  plants,  and  food  will  be  as  current  and  uni- 
versal as  are  beefsteak,  cognac,  sport,  farmer,  gutta-percha, 
etc.,  to-day.  We  may  be  certain  that  the  tourists  of 
the  future,  in  the  hotels  of  the  future,  will  speak  a  lan- 
guage which  will  be  a  potpourri  of  various  tongues, 
English,  as  the  most  practical  and,  except  for  its  irregu- 
lar verbs  and  a  few  other  difficulties  which  might  be 
done  away  with,  the  easiest  to  learn,  forming  the  ground- 
work. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  practical  abbreviation 
of  the  cumbersome  words  now  in  use  will  take  place. 
Such  words  as  "cosmopolitanism"  and  ''electricity"  are 
a  disgrace  to  the  nineteenth  century.  Why  not,  like 
the  practical  Londoner,  who  says  *'bus"  for  ''omnibus," 
and  "Zoo"  for  "Zoological  Gardens,"  speak  of  "el"  in- 
stead of  "electricity,"  deriving  from  it  "ellysis,"  etc.? 

It  is  nonsense  to  dream  of  a  universal  language — 
"Volapiik"  or  "pan  lingua" — because  the  same  language 
could  never  serve  the  purpose  of  the  Hindoo  and  the 
Eskimo,  the  Icelandic  fisherman  and  the  Bedouin.  But 
it  is  possible  that,  for  purposes  of  commerce,  a  universal 
tachygraphy  may  be  invented.    If  we  consider  that  most 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  95 

merchants  and  business-men  use  not  more  than  six 
hundred  expressions  for  their  whole  correspondence, 
we  see  how  easily  each  of  these  expressions  might  be 
reduced  to  a  sign,  and  serve  for  the  whole  world,  as  the 
Arabic  numerals  do.  One  sign  would  denote  to  send, 
versenden,  expedier,  mandare;  and  another,  goods,  mar- 
chandise,  ware;  and  so  on.  The  introduction  of  such 
signs  would  be  but  the  beginning.  A  name  ^or  each 
would  soon  be  found,  and  thus  a  universal,  ii  Umited, 
commercial  language  would  be  formed. 


This  picture  has,  however,  its  shady  side.  We  are 
proud  of  steam  and  electricity;  but  in  one  sense  steam 
has  done  us  harm.  Since  by  its  means,  and  by  the  tele- 
graph and  telephone,  there  is  such  a  great  deal  of  time 
saved,  we  never  have  time  for  anything.  Since  we  have 
conquered  time  and  space,  our  lives  have  become 
shorter,  instead  of  longer.  Our  grandmothers — I  speak 
from  personal  recollection — baked  their  own  bread, 
spun  their  own  linen,  embroidered  their  sofa  cushions 
and  rugs  from  patterns  designed  by  themselves,  or  from 
flowers  picked  in  their  own  garden,  and  had  time,  too, 
to  read,  with  their  daughters,  long  and  soHd  books. 
Many  a  lady  of  to-day  has  not  time  to  do  more  than 
look  over  a  magazine  or  fashion  paper.  Electricity  will 
make  the  next  generation  still  more  restless,  excitable, 
and  nervous;  and  yet  tranquillity  of  mind  and  spirit  is 
the  only  soil  in  which  the  Divine  seed  germinates.  Liv- 
ing at  high  pressure,  the  use  of  stimulants  and  nar- 
cotics, of  alcohol,  opium,  morphia,  etc.,  gains  the  upper 


96  Science  and  Christianity 

hand  in  numberless  cases.  We  see,  too,  the  gradual 
increase  of  intellectual  alcoholism,  the  symptoms  and 
consequences  of  which  correspond  closely  to  those  of 
bodily  intemperance.  An  evergrowing  craving  for  a 
new  excitement,  a  new  interest,  and  that  in  ever  shorter 
intervals  (probably  in  the  future  newspapers  will  ap- 
pear every  hour),  stronger  doses  of  piquant,  exciting 
matter,  followed  by  a  corresponding  reaction  and  con- 
sequent lassitude,  and  an  ever-increasing  weakness  of 
the  brain-nerves  and  intellectual  power  is  what  we  have 
to  expect.  We  find  the  same  thing  among  Christians. 
Religious  people  live  in  a  constant  whirl  of  committee- 
meetings,  conferences,  lectures,  missionary-meetings, 
social  gatherings,  and  parochial  entertainments;  read  all 
kinds  of  religious  publications,  controversial  and  other- 
wise; rush  hither  and  thither  to  hear  this  or  that  popu- 
lar preacher;  in  fact,  they  exhaust  themselves  in  such 
excitements,  and  unfit  themselves  for  good  and  useful 
work.  Such  feverish  activity  may  be  the  lot  of  a  few; 
but  to  the  large  majority  the  saying  of  the  old  Greeks 
will  apply,  ''Zeus  hates  the  all-busy." 

It  is  a  law  of  nature  that  trees  do  not  continuously 
bear  fruit,  and  shake  it  down.  They  rest  through  the 
long  winter.  The  consequence  of  eternal  spring  in  the 
Azores  is  that,  as  a  rule,  the  fruit-trees  perish  of  ex- 
haustion. 

It  is  difBcult  to  see  what  absolute  good  humanity 
has  derived  from  the  enormous  facilitation  and  the  in- 
creased speed  of  locomotion  and  communication.  To 
be  on  the  move  has  a  great  charm  for  most  men,  and 
after  a  journey  of  several  hundred  miles  in  an  express 
one  has  the  feeling  of  having  accomplished  something. 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  97 

But  commerce  flourished,  too,  in  the  times  of  Phoeni- 
cians and  Carthaginians;  and  the  merchants  of  Ulm 
and  Nuremberg,  who  brought  their  wares  from  Genoa 
and  Venice  on  pack-mules  over  the  Alps,  spending  weeks 
on  the  journey,  amassed  great  riches.  Have  we  not  all 
seen  travelers  chafing  at  a  delay  of  twenty  minutes,  and 
then,  an  hour  after  their  arrival  at  their  hotel,  yawning 
and  wondering  how  on  earth  they  are  to  get  through 
the  evening?  One  is  constrained  to  ask  why  they  are 
in  such  a  desperate  hurry  to  get  out  of  one  state  of  mis- 
ery only  to  fall  into  another.  Madame  de  Stael  says 
with  truth,  *'En  voyage  on  ne  troiive  que  ce  qu'on  apporte'' 
— One  only  finds  what  one  brings — and  Loti's  witty 
remark,  "Qu'on  n'est  bien  qu'ailleiirs/'  expresses  the 
feeling  of  too  many.  The  globe-trotter  is  one  of  the 
saddest  figures  of  our  modern  civilization. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  extraordinary  develop- 
ment of  travel  tends  to  increase  the  weakness  of  those 
who  lack  strong  individuality.  It  is  healthful  and  bene- 
ficial for  the  mentally  strong  to  make  acquaintance  with 
new  peoples,  new  conditions  of  existence,  customs,  hab- 
its, and  opinions.  Under  the  varying  form  he  is  always 
able  to  recognize  the  operation  of  the  same  eternal  laws. 
The  weak-minded,  on  the  contrary,  are  confused  by  it. 
It  disturbs  their  mental  balance.  Their  superficial  be- 
liefs are  shaken  when  they  hear  the  views  of  those  who 
think  otherwise;  and  amid  the  continual  changes  they 
come  to  regard  the  world  as  a  huge  fair,  full  of  noise 
and  deception,  where  everything  Is  a  mere  matter  of 
individual  opinion. 

Man  can  not  overstep  the  harmonious  bounds  of 
nature  with  impunity.  One  of  these  is  the  correlation 
7 


98  Science  and  Christianity 

of  time  and  place  with  regard  to  human  thought.  The 
normal  pace  of  a  man  is  a  meter  to  a  second,  as  that  of 
the  snail  is  a  miUimeter.  This  pace  utilizes  space  to  the 
full.  A  greater  rate  of  motion  may  be  agreeable  in  it- 
self, and  valuable  in  the  pursuit  of  a  particular  object; 
but  it  does  not  leave  the  mind  time  to  profit  by  what 
is  seen.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  the 
employment  of  steam  and  electricity  is  in  any  way  im- 
moral; but  I  do  believe  that  we  are  not  in  a  state  of 
mental  development  corresponding  to  such  a  rate  of 
motion.  We  are  like  the  child  who  has  a  £100  note 
given  to  it,  and  who  cuts  it  up  to  paste  in  its  scrap- 
book.  Man,  in  his  higher  state,  on  the  new  earth,  will 
not  only  be  master  of  the  elements  and  forces:  he  will 
be  himself  a  center  of  energy,  shining  like  the  sun,  fly- 
ing hither  and  thither  at  will,  rising  superior  to  weight, 
himself  light  and  force. 

Let  us  take  care,  too,  that,  dazzled  by  the  advantages 
of  association,  we  are  not  blind  to  its  drawbacks.  In 
an  absolute  sense  we  gain  nothing  by  it.  A  £50  note 
is  no  more  valuable  than  twelve  thousand  penny  pieces; 
it  is  simply  more  convenient.  In  association  there  is 
as  much  lost  as  gained.  Thickly-growing  trees  in  a 
wood  protect  one  another  against  the  storm;  but  their 
individual  development  suffers.  When  twelve  men  of 
ability  form  a  committee,  their  decisions  are  not  twelve 
times  wiser,  nor  their  actions  twelve  times  more  reso- 
lute, but,  in  general,  less  energetic  and  spontaneous 
than  if  the  matter  had  been  in  the  hands  of  one  strong 
man.  Given  the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  he  will, 
nine  times  out  of  ten,  accomplish  greater  things  single- 
handed  than  if  he  had  been  associated  with  others. 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  99 

Even  capable  men  neutralize  each  others'  efforts,  and 
their  association  has  often  the  effect  of  paralyzing  indi- 
vidual energies.  Only  the  weak  find  in  it  a  support. 
None  of  the  members  takes  on  his  shoulders  the  bless- 
ing or  the  curse  of  his  words  and  deeds.  He  shares  it 
with  his  party  at  least;  and  the  result  is  that,  from  pub- 
lic bodies,  parliaments,  commissions,  one  has  come  to 
expect  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of  fine  speeches,  but  little 
or  nothing  of  prompt  and  decisive  action. 

It  is  the  same  in  practical  life.  A  transatlantic 
liner  is  a  triumph  of  association.  But  the  first-class 
passenger  and  possible  shareholder,  who  is  taken  on 
board  as  valuable  luggage,  and  delivered  up  safe  at  his 
destination,  has  absolutely  nothing  to  say  in  the  affair, 
and  derives  merely  a  certain  degree  of  ease  and  com- 
fort from  the  luxurious  and  imposing  whole.  The  Eng- 
lishman or  Norwegian  who,  alone,  or  with  a  few  friends, 
crosses  the  ocean  in  his  own  little  yacht,  exposing  him- 
self to  a  certain  amount  of  hardship  and  danger,  does 
much  more :  he  compels  admiration ;  while  it  would  never 
enter  any  one's  head  to  admire  the  first-class  passenger. 
When  a  sportsman  in  Africa  kills  a  rhinoceros  at  a  hun- 
dred yards  with  a  patent  rifle,  he  makes  use  of  a  product 
of  association,  a  result  of  the  thought  and  labor  of 
hundreds  of  men  who  have  contributed  to  the  making 
of  the  weapon.  The  great  hunter.  Baker  Pasha,  felt 
himself  a  little  boy  compared  to  those  Negroes  who, 
by  twos  and  threes,  seek  out  the  lion  in  his  den,  and 
kill  him  in  single  combat  with  swords  of  their  own 
forging. 

Who  would  make  the  better  Robinson  Crusoe  on 
his  desert  island,  the  Norwegian  fisherman  or  the  highly- 


lOO  Science  and  Christianity 

educated  president  and  members  of  a  geographical  so- 
ciety? Have  we  not  seen  scientific  expeditions,  like 
that  of  Franklin,  equipped  with  all  the  resources  and 
appliances  of  civilization,  perish  miserably  amid  the  icy 
solitudes  where  the  Eskimo  lives  happy  and  contented 
with  his  family?  Dr.  Kane,  blocked  in  by  ice  in  a  Polar 
night,  was  astonished  when  his  young  Eskimo  guide 
declared  his  intention  of  returning  to  his  home  a  hun- 
dred miles  off,  and  marched  off  gayly,  arriving  in 
safety  too. 

In  association  the  Individual  sacrifices  his  freedom, 
his  power,  even  his  responsibility,  in  favor  of  the  whole. 
In  consequence  he  loses  in  independence,  strength,  and 
self-confidence.  Although  association  produces,  in 
many  cases,  splendid  results,  the  sum  of  its  achieve- 
ments amounts  to  less  than  the  performances  of  indi- 
vidual men.  We  see  the  same  thing  in  history.  Take 
the  case  of  the  Italian  Republics  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
as  contrasted  with  the  centralized  State  of  to-day. 
Where  is  there  now  a  town  like  the  Venice  of  old,  which 
ruled  the  Mediterranean,  and  carried  on  war  with  the 
Turks  singlehanded;  like  Florence,  which  defied  pope 
and  emperor;  like  the  Hanseatic  towns,  which  engaged 
in  a  struggle  with  Denmark  and  Sweden,  or  which 
could  compare  with  Nuremberg  in  power  and  inde- 
pendence? It  shows  a  natural  reaction  against  the  craze 
for  forming  societies  of  all  kinds,  for  all  objects,  when 
we  find  a  modern  writer,  like  Ibsen,  preaching,  "Only 
he  who  stands  alone  is  strong."  There  is  a  danger,  how- 
ever, of  the  reaction  running  to  the  opposite  extreme. 
Even  suppose  it  were  possible  for  a  man  to  throw  off 
all  responsibility,  break  all  ties,  he  would  become  a 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  loi 

poor,  wretched,  bitter  egoist.  Luther  and  Bismarck, 
among  many  others,  were  strong  through  the  fact  that 
they  were  thinking  and  working  with  and  for  others. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  association,  as  it  exists 
at  the  present  day,  is  not  an  organic  and  hierarchical  edi- 
fice, but  the  contrary. 

The  evils  of  association  are  very  apparent  in  the 
various  industries.  While  agriculture,  the  primary  vo- 
cation of  man,  which  was  regarded  by  the  nations  of 
antiquity  as  worthy  of  equal  respect  with  the  strength 
of  the  soldier  and  the  wisdom  of  the  priest,  requires 
intelligent  and  individual  work,  the  ideal  manufactory 
is  that  in  which  the  workman  does  one  and  the  same 
thing  all  day  and  every  day;  for  by  this  means  the  great- 
est possible  quantity  of  uniform  products  is  obtained. 
But  this  striving  to  make  man  a  narrow  specialist, 
though  producing  practical  results,  has  an  injurious 
effect  on  the  mind,  and  is  another  instance  of  the  con- 
flict between  mind  and  matter.  For  this  reason  this 
division  of  labor  has  led  to  bitter  sociaHsm.  On  the 
one  hand,  a  man  feels  that  he  is  not  on  earth  for  the 
purpose  of  making  one  movement  all  his  life;  on  the 
other,  the  material  and  mechanical  atmosphere  in  which 
he  lives  kills  in  him  spiritual  and  intellectual  cravings, 
so  that  at  last  he  comes  to  believe  that  the  world  is 
nothing  but  a  machine  of  matter  and  force;  and  the 
more  deeply  he  thinks  the  sooner  he  comes  to  that 
belief. 

Strange  to  say,  and  contrary  to  the  expectation  of 
many,  the  spread  of  the  principle  of  association  has  only 
accentuated  the  difference  between  rich  and  poor.  The 
number  of  the  homeless  and  the  destitute  has  increased, 


I02  Science  and  Christianity 

and  also  the  number  of  millionaires.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  money  will  play  a  still  greater  role  in  the  future. 
Nothing  blunts  the  intelligence  and  feelings  like  the 
constant  dealing  with  money.  America  has  shown  us 
two  financiers  who,  beginning  with  nothing,  left  mill- 
ions; and  yet,  with  all  their  sharpness  in  money-making, 
they  were  of  narrow  intellect,  quite  heartless,  and  so 
lamentably  ill-educated  that  one  of  them  could  not  write 
a  sentence  without  a  mistake.  We  can  not  foresee  what 
the  "ring"  wall  lead  to,  and  to  what  lengths  it  will  go. 
It  can  hardly  be  prevented  by  law.  Why  should  not  a 
few  wealthy  men  in  Bremen,  if  they  choose,  buy  up  the 
tobacco-crop  in  Porto  Rico,  and  sell  it  at  any  price  they 
please?  This  system  of  mercantile  boycotting  will 
reach  its  climax  when  no  man  will  be  allowed  to  buy 
or  sell  save  he  that  has  the  mark  or  the  name  of  the 
beast  on  his  right  hand  or  on  his  forehead.  (Revela- 
tion xiii,  1 6,  17.) 

Machinery — this  offspring  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
many,  this  intellectual  petrifaction — revenges  itself  on 
its  authors.  The  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and  Babylonians 
knew  what  they  were  doing  when  they  employed  only 
human  labor.  That  they  could  have  invented  machinery 
is  proved  by  their  method  of  watering  the  hanging  gar- 
dens. The  Egyptian  priests,  too,  caused  the  brazen 
gates  of  the  temple  to  open,  while  the  fire  burned  upon 
the  altar,  by  means  of  steam;  but  they  would  have  con- 
sidered it  sacrilege  to  have  their  statues,  sphinxes,  and 
obelisks  manufactured  by  machinery.  They  venerated 
individuality  as  we  do  association.  Machinery  takes  its 
revenge.  Not  the  worst  it  can  do  is  to  seize  its  creator, 
and  tear  him  limb  from  limb;  it  takes  possession  of  the 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science  103 

intellect  which  went  to  its  making,  petrifies  it,  so  that 
it  remains  latent.  The  galley  slaves,  in  their  tremen- 
dous struggle  with  wind  and  waves,  had  more  moral 
gain  from  their  exertions  than  has  the  machinist  who 
simply  watches  his  machine,  oiling  it  from  time  to  time. 
Practical  and  useful  as  the  typewriter  undoubtedly  is, 
he  who  uses  it  instead  of  writing  a  characteristic  hand 
of  his  own  loses  somewhat  mentally.  It  is  the  same 
with  him  who  makes  his  mathematical  and  astro- 
nomical calculations  by  the  help  of  the  marvelous 
calculating  machine  of  Babbage;  and  with  him  who, 
by  means  of  the  rotatory  apparatus  and  electric  light, 
manufactures  one  thousand  yards  of  photographs  daily 
rather  than  make  one  sketch  from  nature.  The  me- 
chanical process  of  photogravure  is  killing  the  beauti- 
ful art  of  wood  engraving.  Telegraph,  phonograph, 
and  telephone  tend  similarly  to  the  mechanising  of 
language.  We  boast  of  having  overcome  matter,  time, 
and  space;  but  it  is  they  who  conquer  us,  for  they  are 
invincible. 

Lastly,  we  are  proud  of  the  high  pitch  which  we  have 
reached  as  regards  the  comfort  of  daily  life,  compared 
with  that  of  our  ancestors.  Here,  too,  we  are  curiously 
inconsistent;  for  we  teach  our  children  in  all  seriousness 
how  Hannibal's  soldiers  were  enervated  and  made 
effeminate  by  a  single  winter  of  luxury  at  Capua;  how 
the  young  Persians  and  Spartans  became  heroes  by  en- 
during hardships  and  exposure;  and  then  we  scold  if 
they  go  out  without  something  warm  about  their  necks, 
or  stand  in  the  sun  without  their  hats,  and  try  to  make 
them  as  delicate  as  possible.  The  refrain  of  our  history- 
lessons  is  always,  As  soon  as  a  nation  gave  itself  up  to 


I04  Science  and  Christianity 

luxury  and  sensuality,  it  lost  its  ancient  strength  and 
virtue.  This  is  theory;  but  in  practice  our  aim  is  to  make 
our  lives  as  luxurious  and  enjoyable  as  possible.  Day 
and  night  thousands  rack  their  brains  to  invent  and 
manufacture  all  kinds  of  articles  to  save  their  fellow- 
creatures  a  movement  or  a  few  steps.  And  we  are  glad 
of  it,  and  are  grateful  for  any  appliance  or  invention 
which  spares  us  trouble  and  makes  life  easier,  looking 
with  contempt  and  self-satisfaction  on  people  who,  from 
principle  and  for  their  health's  sake,  prefer  to  lead  a 
simple  life. 


In  spite  of  all,  however,  we  are  not  really  smaller 
than  our  forefathers.  Whether  savage  or  civilized, 
whether  Greek  or  Englishman  or  Chinese,  whether 
world-conquering  or  weary  of  existence,  man  is  and  re- 
mains great,  and  humanity  and  its  history  a  spectacle 
for  devils,  angels,  and  God  himself.  As  his  greatness  is 
not  of  himself,  neither  can  he  deprive  himself  of  it.  He 
is  king  of  creation  by  the  grace  of  God.  He  is  great  in 
his  poverty,  his  nakedness,  his  hunger;  for  the  world 
can  not  satisfy  him — great,  too,  in  his  wickedness  and 
impiety.  And  because  he  is  great,  his  conception  of 
life  is  great  too,  whether  it  be  the  patriarchal  idea  of 
the  nomads,  the  aestheticism  of  the  Greeks,  the  power  of 
the  Romans,  or  the  science  of  the  present  day;  for  in- 
separable from  all  are  his  great  love  and  hatred,  his  be- 
lief and  unbelief,  his  hope,  his  sorrow,  his  doubt,  and 
despair;  and  whatever  his  condition  and  views,  he 
wrestles,  even  if  unknowingly,  with  God  and  the  devil 
for  his  soul,  and  would  be  willing  to  sign  it  away  to 


Evolution  and  Modern  Science         105 

any  who  would  still  his  hunger,  end  his  doubts  and  tor- 
ments. 

This  son  of  earth,  brief  as  is  his  stay,  yet  makes  his 
presence  felt  as  lord  of  creation.  He  weighs  and  meas- 
ures the  invisibly  small,  and  also  the  twinkling  stars  and 
their  immense  distances;  has  made  for  himself  eyes 
which  see  a  world  in  a  drop  of  water,  and  descry  solar 
systems  in  the  infinity  of  the  firmament.  He  rides  on 
fire,  and  fire  carries  him  over  the  seas,  forges  his  weap- 
ons, sows  his  corn,  bakes  his  bread,  weaves  his  clothes — 
an  obedient  servant.  He  portrays  with  the  ray  of  light 
the  invisible  stars,  the  cannon-ball  in  flight,  or  the  in- 
side of  man,  and  speaks  by  the  lightning  from  the  Old 
World  to  the  New.  He  hovers  in  space  between  the 
infinities  of  greatness  and  minuteness  of  form  and  color; 
swims  in  the  pure  ether  which  is  filled  with  energy, 
and  is  yet  so  weak;  lives  in  a  world  full  of  life,  and  is 
the  prey  of  death;  a  world  of  light,  and  has  ob- 
scurity in  his  brain  and  darkness  in  his  heart.  He  comes 
into  the  world,  whence  he  knows  not,  looks  about  him, 
struggles  for  his  life  with  the  forces  of  nature  which 
would  destroy  him,  then  grows  pale,  hangs  his  head, 
dies,  and  disappears  from  the  earth.  His  fellows  do  not 
know  whither,  but  they  have  no  time  to  let  it  trouble 
them;  they,  too,  must  work  and  struggle  till  their  time 
comes. 

Weary  of  the  struggle;  recognizing  the  futility  of 
his  efforts  to  make  of  this  earth  a  paradise,  or  even  a 
place  where  he  can  lead  an  untroubled  existence,  and 
the  utter  uselessness  of  attempting  to  reform  society; 
tired  of  himself  and  others,  the  man  of  to-day  turns  to 
nature,  hoping  to  find  in  her  unchanging  laws  and  the 


io6  Science  and  Christianity 

study  of  her  uniform  and  regular  phenomena  some  rest 
and  satisfaction  for  his  troubled  soul.  This  tendency 
and  temper  of  mind  is  but  another  step  in  the  evolution 
of  the  race  as  conceived  by  the  believer  in  the  Bible. 
And  "God  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us;"  but  opens  the 
eyes  of  him  who  desires  to  look  into  the  wonders  of  his 
creation  to  find  there  healing  from  his  artificiality,  his 
errors  of  imagination,  his  selfishness. 

To  summarize  briefly,  modern  science  sees  the  uni- 
verse as  a  magnificent  whole,  animated  in  the  infinitesi- 
mal atom  and  throughout  the  immensity  of  space  by 
wondrous  forces  in  obedience  to  fixed  laws;  a  picture 
passing  human  comprehension,  yet  the  contemplation 
of  which,  to  him  who  has  grasped  in  some  degree  its 
eternal  principles,  brings  strength  and  joy  in  living. 


CHAPTER    III 

Christians  and  Science 

WE  have  seen  what  a  grand  conception  of  nature 
and  the  universe  is  presented  to  us  by  modern 
science.  The  question  now  arises,  What  is  the  atti- 
tude of  Christians — by  which  we  mean  Christians  in 
reality,  not  merely  in  name — towards  this  knowledge 
given  by  God  to  man  for  his  bodily  and  spiritual  good? 

Unfortunately  the  answer  must  be  that  Christians 
in  general  take  up,  with  regard  to  science  and  scientific 
research,  a  position  unworthy  of  their  profession — a 
position,  if  not  antagonistic,  yet  distrustful,  inclining  to 
ridicule,  or  at  least  to  avoidance  of  the  subject. 

Instead  of  giving  time  and  pains  to  the  study  of 
the  achievements  of  scientific  investigation,  a  work  at 
any  rate  historically  important  in  itself  and  its  results;  in- 
stead of  taking  the  trouble  to  sift  the  true  from  the  false, 
fact  from  theory,  and  manfully  opposing  and  refuting 
any  false  deductions  which  science  may  draw;  instead 
of  rejoicing  in  the  ever-widening  horizon  which  it  opens 
to  the  mind,  most  Christians  prefer,  after  letting  off 
a  few  random  remarks  about  the  non-infallibility  of 
science  and  scientists,  to  retire  to  the  domain  of  edifica- 
tion and  the  emotions,  where  they  believe  themselves 
safe  from  the  obstinate  logic  of  facts,  the  inexorable 
mathematics  of  the  universe,  as  if  knowledge  were  not 

I07 


io8  Science  and  Christianity 

edification,  and  the  creation  of  the  world  an  act  as  di- 
vine and  worthy  of  contemplation  as  its  redemption. 
Is  not  the  law  of  Moses  based  upon  a  divine  conception 
of  nature?  Does  not  David  seek  edification  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  work  of  God's  hands  as  well  as  in 
his  law?  And  do  we  not  see  how  Jehovah  himself,  when 
he  appears  in  a  whirlwind  to  convince  Job  of  the  in- 
sufficiency of  his  own  judgment,  points  in  majestic 
words  to  nature  as  a  revelation  of  a  power  and  wisdom 
so  divine  that  man  can  only  bow  before  them  in  awe- 
struck silence?  Of  what  do  the  prophets  speak?  With 
what  does  the  prophecy  deal  which  we  are  warned  not 
to  despise?  Certainly,  in  the  first  instance,  with  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  promise  made  by  God  to  the  children  of 
Israel;  but  also  with  the  redemption  of  creation  and 
the  restoration  of  a  divine  nature.  And  this  restora- 
tion forms  the  closing  theme  of  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  nature,  of  the  relation  of  man- 
kind to  nature,  and  of  the  ultimate  renovation  of  a  na- 
ture divine  and  eternal.  How  should  it,  then,  be  other- 
wise than  edifying  to  us?  He  who  fails  to  find  edifica- 
tion in  the  whole  of  God's  creation  has  not  rightly 
grasped  the  meaning  of  the  word — a  spiritual  build- 
ing-up of  man  in  God — though  we  gladly  admit  that 
there  exists  a  special  Christian  edification.  Does  not 
man  live  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God;  therefore  also  by  the  words  of  creation  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis?  And  yet  many  a  theology  re- 
gards matter  as  a  substance,  created  by  God,  it  is  true, 
but  since  then  repudiated  and  rejected  by  him,  gov- 
erned now  only  by  certain  natural  forces,  and  devoted 


Christians  and  Science  109 

to  ultimate  destruction,  and  the  whole  of  nature  as  cor- 
rupted utterly  and  hopelessly  by  Satan,  and  entirely 
in  his  power,  although  St.  Paul  expressly  declares  to 
the  pagan  Athenians,  "In  God  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being."  Such  theology  fails  to  recognize  that 
creation  is  a  divine  work,  full  of  divine  and  eternal  prin- 
ciples; that  the  stone,  the  plant,  the  animal,  the  human 
being,  here  kept  in  life  by  the  breath  of  God,  and  des- 
tined to  unfold  to  all  eternity  in  the  heaven  of  heavens, 
are  given  by  him  to  man  that  he  may  be  able  to  com- 
prehend in  some  degree  his  power  and  greatness.  Thus 
the  understanding  is  closed  to  the  importance  of  crea- 
tion as  a  revelation  of  the  Godhead.  No  wonder  that 
such  a  theology  should  be  regarded  by  an  age  which  is 
learning  ever  more  and  more  of  the  secrets  of  nature  and 
her  forces,  and  becoming  more  and  more  conscious  of 
their  importance  and  universality,  as  a  moribund  sys- 
tem which  has  not  been  able  to  keep  pace  with  the  in- 
tellectual development  of  humanity,  and  which  is,  there- 
fore, of  no  practical  value  or  use. 

This  narrow  mistrust  and  timid  evasion  of  natural 
science  has  an  injurious  effect  in  two  respects.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  injurious  to  the  individual  Christian  in 
causing  him  to  neglect  this  God-given  opportunity  of 
enlarging  the  scope  of  his  thoughts  and  ideas,  which 
neglect,  logically  and  of  necessity,  results  in  harm  to 
his  spiritual  life.  For  we  receive  our  impressions  and 
ideas  from  our  surroundings.  *'That  which  may  be 
known  of  God  is  manifest  in  them;  for  God  hath  shewed 
it  unto  them;  for  the  invisible  things  of  him  from  the 
creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  under- 
stood by  the  things  that  are  made.'*    (Rom.  i,  19,  20.) 


no  Science  and  Christianity 

Otherwise  God  might  as  well  have  let  us  live  and 
die  in  a  monk's  cell,  as  so  many  have  thought  and  done. 
"IvUther,  in  his  'Table-talk,'  "  says  Liebig  (Chemische 
Briefe,  p.  84),  "excellently  describes  the  awakening 
pleasure  in  nature  and  the  study  of  nature  observable 
at  the  Reformation :  We  are  now  in  the  dawn  of  a  future 
life;  for  we  are  beginning  to  attain  again  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  creation  which  we  lost  through  Adam's  fall.  We 
are  now  looking  closely  at  the  creature.  We  are  begin- 
ning, by  God's  grace,  to  recognize  his  wonders  and 
works  in  the  very  flower.  In  his  creatures  we  learn  the 
power  of  his  Word.'  "  Man  is  created  a  perfect  whole. 
He  can  not  let  his  need  for  knowledge  with  regard  to 
nature  starve  without  his  spiritual  knowledge  suffer- 
ing; and  if  he  lives  in  a  vague,  foggy,  uncertain  rela- 
tion to  the  visible  creation,  how  are  his  ideas  of  the  In- 
visible to  be  clear,  definite,  and  independent?  He  who 
desires  to  think  clearly  and  logically  about  abstract 
things  must  accustom  himself  to  such  a  mode  of  thought 
by  exercising  it  on  the  concrete.  Feeling,  nature  itself 
teaches  us,  is  not  an  action  on  the  part  of  any  organism, 
but  simply  a  passive  quality  which,  unduly  developed, 
weakens  the  power  of  resistance  and  the  vital  energy. 
By  feeling  alone  man  does  not  grow  in  his  inner  life. 

In  the  second  place,  the  community  of  Christians 
places  itself,  by  this  attitude,  outside  the  pale  of  a  cul- 
tured humanity,  which,  in  respect  of  science,  undoubt- 
edly has  advanced,  and  by  this  means  loses  touch  with 
the  intellectual  hfe  of  the  present.  No  wonder  if  the 
God-fearing,  even  though  not  Christian,  naturalist 
smiles  good-humoredly  at  this  kind  of  Christian  as  an 
enthusiast  who  refuses  to  accept  the  clearest  mathe- 


Christians  and  Science  iii 

matical  proof  of  what  he  does  not  choose  to  beUeve, 
and  yet  requires  of  others  that  they  should  beheve  un- 
conditionally in  miracles  which,  from  their  stand- 
point, are  unproved.  No  wonder  that  many  a  youth, 
on  going  to  the  university,  has  felt  like  one  who  said, 
''My  whole  Christian  conception  of  the  universe  has 
fallen  to  pieces  in  view  of  this  much  grander  and  more 
impressive  conception  which  science  presents;"  for  it 
has  been  said,  with  reason,  "The  God  of  the  present- 
day  scientist  is  a  Being  greater,  more  powerful,  and  more 
terrible  than  the  God  of  many  Christians." 

It  is  time  that  a  believing  theology  should  set  itself 
the  task  of  giving  to  the  masses  a  conception  of  nature 
founded  both  on  the  words  of  the  Creator  and  the  facts 
of  creation,  a  task  more  profitable  than  arguing  with 
those  who  boast  of  their  unbelief;  for  the  spiritual  death 
from  which  such  negations  spring  can  not  be  conquered 
by  refutations  and  counterproofs,  but  only  by  spirit  and 
life.  Shall  the  son  of  the  house  understand  less  of  what 
his  Father  does  than  the  stranger?  That  is  just  what 
raises  doubts  with  the  world  as  to  the  sonship  claimed 
by  Christians,  that  these  children  of  God  know  and  care 
to  know  so  little  about  the  works  of  their  Father;  nay, 
even  behave  as  though  the  contemplation  and  study 
of  these  works  were  rather  hurtful  to  them,  and  might 
lead  to  estrangement  and  even  to  a  denial  of  this  Fa- 
ther. ''Theology  will  find  out  in  good  time,"  says  Low- 
ell, "that  there  is  no  atheism  at  once  so  stupid  and  so 
harmful  as  the  fancying  God  to  be  afraid  of  any  knowl- 
edge with  which  he  has  enabled  man  to  equip  himself." 
What !  The  son  of  a  celebrated  architect  ought  not  to 
study  his  father's  buildings!    The  sons  of  Bach  ought 


112  Science  and  Christianity 

not  to  have  listened  to  his  Passion  music,  lest  they 
might  lose  the  filial  reverence  which  they  had  hitherto 
had  for  him,  lest  they  should  even  begin  to  doubt 
whether  their  father  had  ever  existed.  A  thousand 
times,  No!  Whoever  says  he  lost  God  through  study- 
ing nature  never  really  possessed  him.  Is  it  not  written, 
*'The  Spirit  searcheth  all  things;  yea,  the  deep  things 
of  God?"  ''Why  think  so  earthly  of  thyself?"  says  Jacob 
Boehme.  "Why  lettest  thou  thyself  be  mocked  by  the 
devil  as  if  thou  wert  not  the  child  of  God,  born  of  his 
nature?  How  shouldest  thou  not  have  power  to  speak 
of  God,  who  is  thy  Father,  in  whose  image  thou  art 
made?  Behold,  is  not  this  world  God's?  And  if  God's 
light  be  in  thee,  it  is  also  thine." 


What  is,  then,  the  reason  why  so  many  Christians 
hold  themselves  aloof  from  modern  science,  and  regard 
it  with  undisguised  suspicion?  Let  us  consider  a  few 
of  the  various  causes.  In  the  first  place,  it  arises  from 
ignorance  of  the  methods  of  science.  Frightened  by 
technical  terms  and  names,  and  by  the  obscure  mode  of 
expression,  which  many  men  of  science  think  fit  to  use, 
they  immediately  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the  com- 
prehension of  such  things  is  beyond  them.  They  have 
neither  the  time  nor  the  brains  to  arrive  at  an  under- 
standing of  them.  That  may  be  true  of  the  detail  of 
most  sciences;  but  a  knowledge  of  the  great  questions 
which  interest  humanity  is  within  the  grasp  of  almost 
every  one.  A  man  of  average  intelligence,  with  the 
most  elementary  acquaintance  with  mathematics,  can. 


Christians  and  Science  113 

in  a  few  hours,  with  the  help  of  a  simple  work  on  as- 
tronomy, satisfy  himself  of  the  possibility  of  measuring 
the  distance,  size,  and  weight  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
and  that  the  earth  really  revolves  round  the  sun.  He 
can  be  as  certain  of  these  facts  as  that  3x1 5=45?  and 
need  take  no  one's  word  for  it.  As  there  are,  how- 
ever, educated  persons  who  have  so  little  notion  of 
mathematics  that  their  brain  reels  at  the  mere  mention 
of  billions  and  trilHons,  as  if  these  terms  represented 
something  vague  and  mystical,  let  us  show,  by  a  few 
examples,  how  simple  astronomical  calculations  can  be, 
even  though  running  to  quintillions  and  sextillions. 
How  many  grains  of  sand  would  the  earth  contain  if  it 
consisted  solely  of  sand?  Let  us  take  a  grain  of  sand, 
with  the  intervening  space  as  equal  to  one  cubic  milli- 
meter. At  that  rate  a  cubic  meter  contains  one  thou- 
sand milHon  grains;  that  is,  1,000^.  We  know  that 
the  earth's  circumference  is  40,000  kilometers.  Its  con- 
tents is,  therefore,  1,080  thousand  million  cubic  kilo- 
meters. This  number,  multiplied  by  one  thousand  mill- 
ion cubic  meters,  and  this  product  again  multiplied  by 
one  thousand  million  cubic  millimeters=a  total  of  1,080 
and  2.y  ciphers  grains  of  sand.  As  we  know  the  weight 
of  a  cubic  meter  of  sand,  we  can,  in  two  minutes,  cal- 
culate the  weight  of  an  earth  of  sand.  Or,  if  we  put  the 
question.  How  long  would  a  snail,  crawling  at  the  rate 
of  one  millimeter  a  second,  take  to  crawl  round  the 
earth?  the  calculation  is  still  simpler.  The  earth's  cir- 
cumference is,  as  we  have  just  seen,  40,000  million  milli- 
meters; consequently  it  would  take  just  so  many  sec- 
onds=i,268  years,  142  days,  22y  hours,  6  minutes,  4 
seconds.  A  child  of  ten  could  work  it  out.  It  is  evi- 
8 


114  Science  and  Christianity 

dent,  however,  that  this  calculation  is  not  absolutely 
correct,  because  made  in  reference  to  an  imaginary 
horizon-line;  and  this  brings  us  to  a  second  point,  too 
little  taken  into  account  by  the  lay  mind;  namely,  that 
every  calculation  and  measurement  in  daily  life  is,  and 
requires  to  be,  correct  only  to  a  certain  degree.  No 
joiner  measures  a  table  exactly;  no  market-woman 
weighs  you  out  exactly  a  pound  of  butter;  and  if  any 
one  imagines  that  with  so  many  ten-shilling  pieces  he 
receives  absolute  size  and  weight,  he  is  mistaken.  They 
are  worn;  they  are  not  absolutely  equal,  nor  of  full 
weight;  they  wxigh  differently  at  the  poles  and  at  the 
equator,  on  a  mountain  and  at  the  sea-level.  Our  meas- 
urements are,  then,  like  all  our  knowledge,  only  rela- 
tive; and  the  man  of  science  must  not  only  know  how 
to  measure,  but — what  is  often  more  difficult — how  far 
his  measurement  is  exact.  But  the  errors,  too,  are  only 
relative;  and  if  an  astronomer,  in  weighing  the  sun, 
makes  a  mistake  of  one  thousand  million  kilograms, 
that  weight  is  still,  comparatively,  more  exact  than  when 
the  chemist  weighs  you  out  a  grain  of  quinine.  We 
know  the  distance  of  the  sun  to  within  one  fifteen  hun- 
dredth. It  would  be  impossible  to  measure  the  length 
of  your  garden  so  exactly.  To  talk  of  astronomical 
measurements  as  valueless  and  deceptive,  even  though 
they  be  several  millions  of  miles  out,  shows  a  great  lack 
of  sense.  Of  a  stellar  distance  of  four  billion  miles 
one  million  miles  forms  but  1/4,000,000;  is,  therefore, 
inappreciable,  a  negligible  quantity.  Or,  if  the  ques- 
tion is  asked,  How  is  it  possible  to  calculate  the  revo- 
lution of  one  of  Jupiter's  satellites  to  within  one-tenth 
of  a  second?  the  answer  is  that  it  can  not  be  done  in 


Christians  and  Science  115 

one  revolution.  If  I  fix  the  starting-point,  allowing  for 
an  error  of  half  a  minute,  count  six  hundred  revolutions, 
and  then  fix  the  concluding  point  with  the  same  allow- 
ance, it  amounts  to  not  more  than  one  minute,  dis- 
tributed over  six  hundred  revolutions,  to  only  one-tenth 
of  a  second,  over  six  thousand  revolutions  to  only  one 
hundredth  of  a  second. 

Any  one  who  knows  the  simple  axiom  of  trigonom- 
etry, that,  given  the  base  and  the  two  adjacent  angles, 
one  has  the  triangle,  can,  by  means  of  even  a  home-made 
theodolite,  measure,  from  two  windows  of  his  house, 
the  distance  of  a  tree,  a  tower,  another  house;  and,  in 
the  same  way,  the  distances  of  sun,  moon,  and  stars  are 
measured  by  astronomers. 

The  difficulty  does  not  lie  in  the  simple  and  mathe- 
matically infallible  process,  but  in  the  numerous  precau- 
tions, forming  almost  a  science  of  themselves,  which 
alone  make  exactitude  possible  for  great  distances,  and 
enable  us  to  measure  the  largest  and  the  most  distant 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  the  diameter  of  a  hair  ten 
yards  ofY.  Similarly,  in  chemistry,  in  physics,  and  in 
geology,  great  learning  and  knowledge  of  a  special  kind 
are  by  no  means  indispensable  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  methods,  facts,  and  limitations  of  these  sciences; 
for  here  the  ground-principles  are  both  convincing  and 
intelligible. 

The  first  thing  to  be  sought  after  is  a  clear  compre- 
hension of  the  methods  of  observation  and  control  em- 
ployed by  natural  science.  Let  us  not  rest  content 
with  reading  popular  works  on  the  subject,  which,  in 
the  strain  after  effect,  rarely  touch  the  root  of  the  mat- 
ter, or  give  a  true  idea  of  the  methods  of  investigation. 


ii6  Science  and  Christianity 

The  thing  of  greatest  importance  in  the  study  of  any 
science  is  just  what  is  least  interesting  to  the  majority 
of  people;  for  instance,  in  geology  it  is  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  formation  of  the  various  strata  and  their 
manifold  faults;  in  astronomy,  its  mathematical  ground- 
work and  the  exact  and  laborious  process  of  observation 
and  its  regulation;  in  chemistr}^,  the  theory  of  atomic 
weights  and  the  deductions  from  it.  He  who  is  igno- 
rant of  these  fundamental  principles  can  not  judge  for 
himself.  He  will  be  tossed  to  and  fro  between  the  vary- 
ing and  often  contradictory  theories  and  explanations 
of  professors  and  amateurs  as  taught  in  books  and  lec- 
tures. The  mastering  of  what  is  necessary  to  definite 
knowledge  in  science  involves  no  very  great  expendi- 
ture of  time  and  trouble.  If  the  time  wasted  in  aimless 
and  fruitless  discussions  on  science,  materialism,  and 
Christianity  were  spent  in  the  serious  and  methodical 
acquisition  of  the  elementary  and  fundamental  truths 
of  science,  there  would  be  a  great  gain,  both  in  clear- 
ness and  definiteness.  The  knowledge  of  the  specialist 
is,  on  the  whole,  unnecessary  to  a  right  conception  of 
nature  and  the  world.  The  true  man  and  the  genius 
alike  feel  the  need  of  education  in  all  directions  and  the 
danger  of  losing  one's  self  in  details.  Every  educated 
man  ought  to  know  what  an  ammonite  is,  the  limits  of 
size  (from  one  and  one-half  millimeters  to  several  milli- 
meters), the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  the  various 
species,  the  chambers  and  lobes,  and  have  an  acquaint- 
ance with  certain  types  and  the  principal  strata  in  which 
they  occur — e.  g.,  Am.  Bucklandi,  Am.  Amaltheus — but 
it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  know  the  four,  or,  according 
to  some,  eight  hundred  varieties,  their  Latin  names, 


Christians  and  Science  117 

where  they  are  found,  etc.  Only  the  knowledge  which 
a  man  acquires  for  himself  is  of  value  to  the  mind;  and 
Galileo  was  right  in  saying  that  it  is  a  misfortune  when 
a  man  takes  the  opinion  of  others,  and  not  the  nature  of 
the  things  themselves,  as  the  basis  of  his  ideas.  Much  as 
we  should  revere  and  admire  true  knowledge  and  ability, 
a  childish  veneration  for  the  professor  and  his  dogmas 
is  to  be  deprecated  as  injurious  in  its  effects. 

In  the  second  place,  the  nervous  distrust  of  science 
prevalent  in  certain  circles  arises  from  a  confounding 
of  fact  and  explanation.  A  fact  is  that  which  can  either 
be  mathematically  proved,  as  that  the  three  angles  of 
a  triangle  are  together  equal  to  two  right  angles;  or  that 
which  can  at  any  time  be  demonstrated  by  experiments — 
€,  g.,  that  oxygen  and  hydrogen  combined  form  water; 
that  chlorine  and  sodium  (common  salt)  produce  in  the 
spectrum  a  particular  yellow  line  in  a  particular  place;  or, 
lastly,  that  which  is  attested  by  sufficient  and  credible 
testimony,  as  that  meteorites  fall  from  the  sky.  A  fact  is 
a  truth  in  the  universe,  against  which  theories  and  sys- 
tems are  powerless;  facts  are  obstinate  things,  as  the 
witty  Frenchman  said,  ''II  n'y  a  rien  de  si  bete  quhm 
faitr  There  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  obstinate  fact 
that,  as  there  is  none  in  itself  either  good  or  bad,  there 
is  none  either  religious  or  irreligious.  Since  ever  the 
world  began,  and  so  long  as  heaven  and  earth  shall  last, 
there  never  has  been  and  never  will  be  a  fact  to  prove 
that  there  is  no  God,  or  that  the  soul  is  not  immortal,  or 
that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  come  to  earth  as  God-man 
to  die  for  our  sins;  and  there  is  no  fact  which  proves 
that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  that  the 
sick  can  not  be  healed  by  prayer,  for  the  reason  that 


ii8  Science  and  Christianity 

facts  have  no  negative  proof-power.  The  fact  that  thou- 
sands of  millions  of  stones  during  centuries  have  never 
given  the  least  sign  of  animation  does  not  alter  the 
fact  that  the  loadstone  attracts  iron,  even  without  their 
being  brought  into  contact — one  of  the  most  remarkable 
phenomena  connected  with  matter,  by  the  way.  Facts 
by  themselves  are,  like  the  unpointed  Hebrew  conso- 
nant-writing, hollow,  colorless  forms,  without  any  mean- 
ing. They  only  become  alive  with  color  and  sound  by 
the  addition  of  the  vowels.  And  as  in  that  language 
other  vowels  can  be  put  to  the  consonants,  or  the  same 
arranged  in  different  order,  so  as  entirely  to  change  the 
sense,  we  see  every  day  how  the  same  fact  may  be  in- 
terpreted differently,  or  even  in  direct  opposition. 

Facts  are  like  words,  which,  even  though  embodying 
a  thought  and  meaning  in  themselves,  when  taken  singly 
are  devoid  of  sense — house,  read,  sand,  before.  A  spir- 
itual force  and  intention  must  link  them  together;  then 
a  reasonable  sentence  arises.  And  here,  too,  everything 
depends  on  the  arrangement;  otherwise  the  subject  may 
become  the  object,  and  vice  versa,  or  cause  be  con- 
founded with  effect.  Bacon  tells  us  that  no  phenome- 
non, taken  by  itself,  explains  itself;  but  that  what  is 
connected  with  it,  carefully  observed  and  rightly  placed, 
leads  to  understanding.  Every  phenomenon  has  its 
reason;  every  effect  has  its  cause.  Tell  a  German  peas- 
ant that  the  line  of  hydrogen  in  the  spectrum  of  Sirius 
shows  a  displacement  towards  the  red,  and  he  will  gaze 
at  you  open-mouthed,  and,  if  he  finds  words  at  all,  prob- 
ably say,  ''I  do  n't  care."  This  fact,  which  has  no  con- 
nection with  anything  in  his  brain,  is  absolutely  mean- 
ingless to  him,  and  would  remain  so,  even  if  you  were 


Christians  and  Science  119 

to  show  it  to  him  in  the  spectroscope.  It  would  be 
of  less  use  to  him  than  a  rough  diamond  to  a  child. 
But  make  the  same  remark  to  a  man  who  understands 
astronomy.  Immediately  there  arises  in  his  mind  a 
series  of  interesting  and  exciting  ideas.  He  recognizes 
from  it,  by  the  aid  of  certain  other  facts  known  to  him, 
that  this  giant  sun  is  receding  from  us  at  the  enormous 
speed  of  eleven  hundred  and  eighty-eight  kilometers 
a  year;  and,  according  as  he  is  possessed  of  a  larger  or 
smaller  share  of  imagination,  he  sees  with  the  mind's 
eye  this  great  world  rushing  on  through  time  and  space 
towards  an  unknown  destination — a  spectacle  than  which 
earth  presents  none  more  imposing. 

The  explanation  of  facts  is  what  every  one — the 
greatest  savant  and  the  greatest  ignoramus — thinks  of 
as  background  to  the  fact  itself.  It  is,  therefore,  his 
private  concern;  he  must  test  it  sine  ira  et  cum  studio 
as  to  whether  it  accounts  satisfactorily  for  the  fact,  and 
tallies  with  it  or  not,  in  which  case  the  explanation  is 
occasionally  found  to  put  more  into  the  fact  than  really 
lies  in  it. 

A  striking  example  of  this  premature  confusion  of 
observed  facts,  with  the  theories  rightly  or  wrongly  de- 
duced from  them,  is  afforded  by  the  Darwinian  doc- 
trine. In  view  of  the  great  excitement  into  which  the 
world  of  thought  was  thrown  by  this  doctrine,  which 
was  taught  by  Empedocles  (B.  C.  470),  then  held  by 
Lamarck,  and  further  developed  and  enriched  by  Dar- 
win with  the  theory  of  natural  selection  and  the  descent 
of  man,  it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  go  into  it  more 
fully. 


I20  Science  and  Christianity 

Lamarck,  in  his  "Philosophic  Zoologique,"  had  tried 
to  prove  that  the  animal  world  consists  of  a  connected 
chain,  beginning  with  the  infusoria,  and  ending  with 
man.  He  explained  the  evolution  of  organisms  by 
adaptability  to  circumstances.  "The  giraffe,  living  in 
the  interior  of  Africa,  where  the  ground  is  always  dry 
and  barren,  was  compelled  by  circumstances  to  feed  on 
the  foliage  of  the  trees.  By  constantly  raising  the  fore 
part  of  the  body,  and  stretching  the  neck,  both  at  length 
became  so  long  that  its  mouth  could,  without  effort, 
reach  the  leaves  at  a  height  of  six  yards."  (Professor 
Quenstedt,  "Die  Schopfung,"  p.  24.) 

Similarly,  according  to  Lamarck,  "the  efforts  of 
some  short-necked  bird  to  catch  fish  without  wetting 
himself  have,  with  time  and  perseverance,  given  rise  to 
all  our  herons  and  long-necked  waders."  (Huxley, 
Darwiniana,  p.  12.)  He  presupposes  "iin  temps  enorme" 
in  support  of  his  theory. 

During  the  expedition  of  the  Beagle  to  South  Amer- 
ica, 1831-36,  Darwin's  attention  was  first  drawn  to  the 
variations  which  organisms — animals  in  particular — 
undergo  subject  to  the  varying  influence  of  climate, 
food,  breeding,  and  altered  physical  conditions  of  any 
kind.  He  studied  still  further  the  changes  pro- 
duced by  these  external  influences  during  the  course 
of  several  generations,  and  found  in  many  organisms  a 
most  remarkable  adaptability  to  outward  conditions. 
He  found  that  this  adaptability  is  furthered  by  natural 
selection,  according  to  which  those  individuals  which 
survive  as  best  fitted  for  the  struggle  for  existence  mul- 
tiply among  themselves,  transmitting  their  peculiari- 
ties to  their  descendants. 


Christians  and  Science  I2i 

Darwin  would  have  remained  on  the  unassailable 
ground  of  fact  if  he  had  confined  himself  to  the  state- 
ment of  the  following  propositions : 

1.  The  species  possesses  a  certain  plasticity,  which 
renders  it  capable  of  adapting  itself  to  outward  circum- 
stances, and  in  such  a  way  that  externals — color,  hair, 
etc. — undergo  greater  modification  than  the  internal 
structure,  skeleton,  intestines,  voice. 

2.  Adaptability  has  its  Hmits.  When  the  limit 
is  reached,  the  individual  perishes,  and  the  species  dies 
out.  The  nearer  the  forms  are  to  the  original  of  the 
species  the  more  vitality  they  possess;  the  further  they 
deviate  from  it,  the  more  perishable  they  are. 

3.  Let  the  external  influences  become  once  more 
what  they  originally  were — as,  for  example,  when  cul- 
ture ceases,  and  plant  or  animal  becomes  wild — and  the 
species  returns  to  the  original  type.  There  was  a  great 
fascination  in  the  thought  of  this  plasticity  of  organisms 
as  unlimited,  given  time  unlimited.  It  provided  an  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  all  species  from  a  primordial 
cell.  On  this  theory  the  word  "species"  has  only  a 
relative  value  for  a  certain  length  of  time;  in  that  case, 
however,  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  necessity  for  the  im- 
mense variety  of  types;  for  example,  Why  was  there 
not  one  single  type  for  the  same  waters? 

Darwin  says  of  Lamarck's  girafife :  "The  girafife  did 
not  get  its  long  neck  by  continued  stretching,  but  by 
natural  selection.  Africa  was  overtaken  by  great 
drought,  the  vegetation  of  the  ground  dried  up.  Only 
a  few  animals  accidentally  possessed  of  long  necks  were 
able  to  subsist  on  the  leaves  of  trees.  All  short-necked 
animals,  if  they  were  unable  to  climb,  died  out.     Long 


122  Science  and  Christianity 

necks  became  hereditary,  and  if  this  drought  recurred 
frequently  a  giraffe-neck  would  eventually  be  produced." 
(Quenstedt,  Die  Schopfung.) 

With  this  view  or  theory,  however,  Darwin  stepped 
from  the  region  of  fact  on  to  the  uncertain  territory 
of  mere  supposition,  of  intellectual  speculation.  It  is 
true,  he  himself  spoke  of  it  with  difilidence  as  an  idea 
which  awaited  the  confirmation  of  fact,  and  hoped  to 
find  the  missing  links;  but,  as  is  usually  the  case,  his 
disciples  and  adherents  seized  upon  it  at  once,  and  ele- 
vated it  to  the  position  of  a  creation-dogma.  It  was 
just  what  too  many  wished,  to  be  able  in  offering  man- 
kind a  fascinating  and  ingenious  theory  to  proclaim  the 
final  victory  over  the  legendary  and  old-fashioned  Bible- 
story  of  the  creation,  and  to  drive  the  old  Creator,  if 
not  altogether  out  of  his  creation,  yet  to  its  extremest 
limit,  into  the  primitive  cell  of  the  primitive  age.  Many 
thought:  Just  one  kick  more,  he  will  fly  into  nothing- 
ness, and  we  shall  be  rid  of  him  forever!  Spiller  says, 
"Unfortunately,  Darwin  himself  is  of  opinion  that  the 
original  form  of  all  life  received  the  breath  of  life  from 
the  Creator''    (Das  Leben,  p.  y2.) 

Many  a  Christian  read  with  anxiety  the  tidings  of  the 
new  doctrine  of  the  evolution  of  all  living  beings,  and 
considered  within  himself  whether  he  would  not,  after  all, 
be  obliged  to  give  up  his  old  ideas  of  the  Creator,  or 
bring  them  into  conformity  somehow  with  the  progress 
of  science.  But  inexorable  facts  placed  themselves 
against  this  fascinating  theory.  The  plasticity  of  or- 
ganisms has  its  limits. 

No  amount  of  cultivation,  no  gardener,  is  able  to 
make  an  apple  of  a  pear,  an  apricot  of  a  peach,  similar 


Christians  and  Science  123 

as  these  forms  are.  In  the  same  way  all  the  patient 
and  costly  attempts  of  the  Prince  of  Schaumburg  to 
breed  a  cross  from  hares  and  rabbits  for  purposes  of 
sport  have  been  unsuccessful,  although  the  two  species 
differ  almost  solely  in  the  fact  that  the  rabbit  brings  its 
young  into  the  world  blind  and  destitute  of  hair,  and 
therefore  lives  in  a  burrow,  while  the  young  hare,  as 
soon  as  it  is  born,  runs  off  open-eyed  and  well-clothed, 
and  for  this  reason  lives  in  the  open.  The  mule,  the 
cross  between  horse  and  ass,  is  sterile.  It  is  a  fact  that 
all  varieties  of  tame  pigeons — tumblers,  pouters,  car- 
riers, and  fantails — left  to  themselves  on  a  desert  island, 
return  to  the  original  slate-colored  wild  pigeon,  even 
regaining  the  two  dark  rings  round  the  legs.  That  was 
one  of  the  first  things  which  attracted  Darwin's  atten- 
tion, and  which  ought  to  have  set  him  on  the  right  track. 
In  the  absence  of  cultivation,  the  four,  some  say  six, 
thousand  kinds  of  roses,  Marechal  Niel  and  Gloire  de 
Dijon,  mossrose  and  monthly  rose,  La  France  and  Vis- 
countess Folkestone,  become  once  more  the  sweet  and 
simple  wild  rose.  The  naturalist  knows,  too,  that  the 
numerous  varieties  of  dog — St.  Bernard  and  pug,  mas- 
tiff and  terrier — can  be  led  back  to  the  ground  type,  the 
wolf  (canis  lupus),  the  fox,  or  the  jackal.  The  finest 
kinds  of  fruit  soon  return  to  the  wild  state;  the  choicest 
strawberry,  through  lack  of  care,  degenerates  into  the 
wood-strawberry,  and  the  finest  pears  produce,  in  the 
second  generation,  wilder  varieties,  a  return  to  the  origi- 
nal wild  pear. 

How  fixed  and  unchangeable  the  type  is  can  be 
shown  by  many  examples.  The  grains  of  wheat  found 
in  Egyptian  mummy-cases  produce  a  plant  identical 


124  Science  and  Christianity 

with,  though  larger  and  more  fertile  than  the  present. 
So  do  the  seeds  of  corn-flowers  and  clover  found  in 
Celtic  tumuli,  two  thousand  years  old.  In  Egypt  the 
mummies  of  the  ichneumon,  the  serval,  the  Nubian  cat, 
and  the  wildcat,  though  four  thousand  years  old,  are  ex- 
actly like  those  animals  to-day.  Even  varieties  of  them 
are  recognizable.  The  swallow  builds  her  nest  and  the 
bee  her  honeycomb,  the  spider  spins  her  web,  in  the  same 
way  as  they  did  three  thousand  years  ago.  The  hazel- 
nuts and  other  fruits  found  in  the  lake-dwellings  and  at 
Pompeii  are  the  same  as  those  we  know.  The  primitive 
bear  and  lion  differ  from  the  present-day  species  only 
in  size;  and  we  have  seen  that  the  oldest  human  skulls 
can,  on  the  w-hole,  compare  favorably  with  those  of  to- 
day as  regards  facial  angle,  formation,  and  capacity  of 
skull. 

The  fact,  then,  that  in  the  case  of  organisms  known 
to  be  four  thousand  years  old  we  find  the  very  species 
now  on  earth,  only  with  such  differences  as  at  all  times 
distinguish  one  individual  from  another,  justifies  us,  I 
think,  in  opposing  to  the  arbitrary  assertion  of  the  Dar- 
winist that,  during  immeasurable  periods  of  time,  spe- 
cies do  change,  the  assertion — arbitrary,  too,  but  more 
borne  out  by  facts — that  they  do  not  change. 

In  geology  and  the  study  of  fossils  we  find  the 
strongest  proofs  of  this.  Here  facts  speak  altogether 
against  Darwin.  In  the  strata  w^hich,  according  to  the 
Darwinians,  are  many  hundred  thousand  years  old,  are 
found  leaves  and  branches  of  the  elm  and  lime-tree, 
precisely  similar  to  ours.  In  the  amber  of  still  older 
formations  spiders  occur,  and  in  Solenhofen  slate  dragon- 
flies,  and  in  the  strata  containing  coal  araucarias,  tree- 


Christians  and  Science  125 

ferns  and  palms  like  those  growing  In  the  tropics  to- 
day. These  species  of  plants  and  animals  appear  by 
hundreds,  and  then  die  out,  disappear,  and  make  way 
generally  for  higher  forms,  without  even  making  an 
attempt  to  work  themselves  up  to  these  higher  forms. 
In  the  first  place,  after  a  number  of  small  water-creatures 
we  come  across  an  immense  plant-creation,  the  pres- 
ent coal.  That  disappears,  and  the  Jura  arises,  with 
its  millions  and  millions  of  saurians,  or  lizards,  with 
pterodactyls  and  a  few  birds.  After  that  the  chalk  for- 
mation, with  modern  sharks,  quadrupeds,  and  our  fo- 
liage-trees, covers  the  earth  for  the  most  part,  till  in  the 
alluvial  deposits  man  appears  for  the  first  and  last  time. 
There  occur,  here  and  there,  intermediate  forms,  as 
everywhere  in  nature  nowadays;  but  nowhere  are  there 
transitional  creatures.  Let  us  consider  a  few  of  the 
types  from  these  great  divisions.  After  a  few  anthra- 
cites formed  of  seaweed  in  the  oldest  gneiss  formation 
(Dr.  Sorge),  the  first  traces  of  animal  life  appear,  not, 
as  the  Darwinian  theory  would  lead  us  to  expect,  in  the 
shape  of  sponges  and  corals,  but  of  the  highly-devel- 
oped Bohemian  trilobites  in  hundreds  of  varieties,  crus- 
taceans, with  perfectly  formed  head  and  as  many  as  eight 
thousand  facets  in  the  eye.  (Quenstedt.)  Small  and 
unimportant  organisms  remain  quite  unaltered  and  un- 
affected by  any  evolution  through  all  geological  periods, 
embracing,  according  to  the  Darwinian  theory,  many 
millions  of  years.  There  are  a  few  kinds  of  snail,  which, 
in  course  of  time,  have  evolved  one  from  the  other;  but 
it  does  not  do  to  base  a  system  on  certain  anomalies 
and  freaks  of  nature.  Of  what  import  are  such  excep- 
tional cases  in  face  of  the  thousands  and  millions  of  or- 


126  Science  and  Christianity 

ganisms  which  have  not  changed?  The  small  shell 
lingiila,  for  example,  occurs  in  the  oldest  Fucoid  sand- 
stone, together  with  the  first  and  simplest  plant  forms, 
and  has  remained  unchanged.  Quenstedt  says  (Petre- 
faktenkunde,  p.  556),  ''Many  of  the  terebratula  are  iden- 
tical with  the  living  Waldheimia."  Many  kinds  of 
nautili  encrinites  and  pentacrinus,  only  smaller,  live  at 
the  present  day  in  the  seas  of  the  Antilles;  likewise  limu- 
his,  the  Molucca  crab  sold  in  the  markets  of  Java.  Why 
have  these  organisms  not  developed  at  all?  Similarly 
we  find  in  none  of  these  strata  a  calamite  or  equisetum 
developing  into  an  araucaria,  a  trilobite  into  an  am- 
monite; or  a  plesiosaurus  or  ichthyosaurus,  which  looks 
as  if  it  were  endeavoring  to  become  a  shark;  or  a  fish 
gradually  maturing  to  a  turtle  or  a  crocodile;  or  a  bird 
on  the  way  to  becoming  a  quadruped.  The  birds  and 
insects,  in  fact,  appear  as  exclusive  kingdoms.  Nowhere, 
in  spite  of  the  billions  of  organisms  and  the  immensity 
of  geological  ages,  is  there  an  instance  of  a  plant  or  a 
tree  gradually  growing  into  an  animal. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  with  the  upper  and  later  de- 
posits. The  dinotherium  and  the  megatherium,  the 
mastodon  and  the  mammoth,  do  not  evolve  from  lower 
animals,  but  all  of  them — these  colossal,  wild,  weird 
forms — march  up  at  their  Creator's  word  after  their  kind, 
and  make  their  exit  after  their  kind.  Inflexible,  obsti- 
nate in  their  characteristics,  consistent  in  their  appear- 
ance, making  no  attempts  at  adaptation  or  transmuta- 
tion, they  die  out  when  the  state  of  things  on  earth 
no  longer  suits  them,  leaving  it  to  their  Creator  to  in- 
vent fresh  types  adapted  to  the  new  conditions. 

To  this,  the  greatest  objection,  Darwin  replied  that 


Christians  and  Science  127 

the  missing  links  would  be  found  sooner  or  later — a 
bold  assertion.  Since  then  we  have  explored  the  earth 
still  more  widely.  We  have  dug  for  water  in  the  Sahara, 
for  coal  in  Spitzbergen,  and  in  Australia  for  both. 
New  Zealand  and  Siberia,  Ceylon  and  South  Africa, 
have  been  the  subject  of  geological  research;  and  the 
book  of  the  earth's  crust,  with  its  thousand  pages,  has 
been  perused  tolerably  thoroughly.  Everywhere  the 
millions  of  fossil  illustrations  of  past  ages  show  us  many 
species  simultaneously  and  successively;  but  nowhere  are 
there  instances  of  gradual  transition  from  one  species  to 
another.  This  is  acknowledged,  not  only  by  Christian 
naturalists,  who  might  be  suspected  of  partiality  in  the 
matter,  but  also  by  noted  antichristian  scientists. 

Let  us  see  what  they  have  to  say  on  the  subject: 
Cuvier  pointed  out  to  Lamarck  the  fact  that  the  ibis 
in  Egypt  had  not  changed  during  four  thousand  3^ears. 
Liebig  writes,  "Strict  scientific  investigation  knows 
nothing  of  a  chain  of  organic  beings."  (Chemische 
Briefe,  p.  2)^6.)  Wigand,  in  the  year  i^7A--77  pubHshed 
a  thorough  refutation  of  Darwinism  in  a  comprehensive 
work  with  that  title. 

Dubois-Reymond  says  calmly  and  ironically  of  the 
theory  of  natural  selection,  ''In  holding  to  this  theory 
one  has  the  feeling  of  the  drowning  man  clinging  to  a 
plank  which  can  not  do  more  than  just  hold  him  above 
water." 

The  well-known  editor  of  Nafiir,  Dr.  K.  Miiller, 
writes:  "We  believe  that  it  is  impossible  to  know  any- 
thing of  the  origin  of  species  because  it  is  removed  be- 
yond the  perception  of  the  senses;  even  if  we  place  our- 
selves on  Darwinian  ground  there  is  no  possibility  of 


128  Science  and  Christianity 

our  seeing  a  new  species  originate  from  an  older  one^ 
though  we  should  live  a  thousand  years."  Haeckel, 
himself  a  Darwinian,  takes  the  same  view  in  determin- 
ing the  periods  as  of  infinite  duration.  This  excludes 
3,11  idea  of  sensible  perception,  the  basis  of  all  knowledge, 
and  we  come  to  think  with  Hegel,  that  all  philosophy 
originates  from  a  postulate,  from  a  proposition  which 
we  must  be  content  to  accept  without  explanation. 
(Die  Natur,  April,  1888.) 

Dr.  Kalisch  writes:  *'The  immutability  of  species 
can  only  be  refuted  by  experimental  proof  of  their 
changeableness;  but  when  will  this  be  possible?  Will 
it  ever  be  possible?  And  as  regards  natural  selection, 
has  this  been  proved  in  any  single  instance?"  (BerUn, 
1883.  Erwiederung  gegen  Dubois-Reymond  iiber 
Goethe.) 

The  conckision  of  an  article  on  the  subject  by  the 
well-known  materialist,  Professor  Vogt,  of  Geneva,  runs 
thus :  'Xet  it  suffice  to  have  referred  to  these  extremely 
involved  ideas.  On  all  sides  we  meet  with  the  greatest 
variety  in  the  individual  species.  Here  we  have  animal 
organisms  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  have  remained  un- 
changed through  aeons,  and  have  adapted  themselves 
to  any  condition  of  existence.  There,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  others  which  have  passed  through  numerous  stages 
of  transmutation  in  different  ways.  Others  there  are 
which,  after  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  existence,  per- 
ished without  leaving  any  visible  descendants.  Let  him 
who  can  reconcile  these  facts.  So  much,  however,  fol- 
lows from  them,  that  the  dogma,  according  to  which 
a  similar  structure  denotes  a  common  origin,  and  on 
which  our  entire  phylogenetic  (genealogical)  investiga- 


Christians  and  Science  129 

tion  rests,  can  not  claim  to  hold  good  in  every  case. 
The  onchidium,  with  the  eye  of  the  vertebrata,  is  not  a 
descendant  of  the  vertebrata,  nor  the  vertebrata  of  the 
onchidium.  The  American  horse  is  not  descended  from 
that  of  the  Old  World,  nor  vice  versa.  The  South  Amer- 
ican llama  has  not  a  common  ancestor  with  the  Asiatic 
camel,  etc.  Investigation  will  perhaps  find  the  solution 
in  each  individual  case,  perhaps  not;  but  in  any  case  it 
is  better  to  say :  'We  have  not  come  down  to  daubing  the 
gaps  over  with  a  dogma  which  the  first  rain  will  turn 
into  clay.'  " 

With  regard  to  the  oft-cited  similarity  of  all  embryos, 
that  of  man,  as  well  as  of  higher  and  lower  animals, 
Vogt  says:  ''No  anatomical,  no  embryological  investi- 
gation has  so  far  been  able  to  give  the  slightest  hint 
as  to  how  the  nervous  system  of  the  annelida  has  been 
transformed  into  the  central  nervous  system  of  the 
vertebrata;  and  yet  this  nervous  system  is  the  first  thing 
originated  in  the  embryo  of  a  vertebrate  animal." 

Concerning  Hensen's  observations  on  the  plankton 
(the  German  collective  scientific  name  for  the  minute 
organisms  living  in  sea  water),  Dr.  K.  Miiller  pithily 
remarks :  "These  forms  of  life  are  beings  built  up  under 
the  most  transparent  and  uniform  conditions,  so  that 
one  might  expect  to  find  in  them  the  easiest  path  to 
the  comprehension  of  the  conditions  of  development. 
And  yet  the  way  trodden  by  Darwinism  shows  itself 
here  more  and  more  impassable.  The  closer  the  investi- 
gation, the  sharper  becomes  the  distinction  between  the 
species;  and  in  many  cases  hitherto  looked  upon  as  in- 
stances of  transition  more  recent  observations  have 
shown  the  supposition  to  be  at  fault.  Nothing  is  more 
9 


130  Science  and  Christianity 

hopeless  than  to  explain  by  means  of  the  Darwinian 
theory  the  origin  and  existence  of  this  infinity  of  varie- 
ties under  conditions  so  uniform  as  those  afforded  by 
the  sea." 

So  far  back  as  1868  the  celebrated  anthropologist, 
Professor  de  Ouatrefages,  expressed  himself  as  follows 
respecting  the  descent  of  man  from  the  monkey,  which 
Darwinism  demands  as  a  logical  conclusion:  ''Embry- 
ogeny  unites  with  anatomy  and  morphology  to  show 
how  greatly  in  error  are  those  who  teach  in  accordance 
with  Darwin's  theory,  the  descent  of  man  from  the  ape." 

Dr.  K.  Miiller  writes :  ''We  have  long  held  that  be- 
tween the  animal  and  the  human  mind  there  exists  an 
impassable  gulf,  which  is  not  to  be  bridged  even  by  the 
assumption  of  a  link,  an  ancestor  extinct  and  untrace- 
able. Each  organism  represents  a  particular  idea  in 
the  series  of  organisms."    (Die  Natur,  September,  1878.) 

Finally,  to  quote  Professor  Virchow  (at  Frankfurt, 
August,  1888):  "I  can  make  nothing  of  the  idea  that 
man  evolves  from  an  animal ;  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
links  do  not  exist  which  would  exist  if  they  had  ever 
lived.  The  immediate  ancestor  of  man,  the  missing  link, 
is  non-existent.  If,  as  Darwin  thinks,  climate  alone  ac- 
counted for  the  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes  of  the  Teutonic 
race,  how  comes  it  that  North  America,  with  similar 
climatic  conditions,  has  never  produced  a  fair-haired 
race  [the  Eskimos,  for  instance,  are  dark-skinned,  with 
black  hair] ;  and  why  are  there  in  tropical  America  and 
Asia  no  Negroes?" 

We  see,  therefore,  how  well-known  savants,  who  can 
not  be  suspected  of  a  leaning  to  Christianity,  who  ought, 
from  their  mode  of  thought,  to  be  in  sympathy  with 


Christians  and  Science  131 

Darwinism,  unanimously  reject  it  on  the  ground  of 
scientifically-proved  facts. 

Wigand,  the  clever  and  able  antagonist  of  Darwin, 
is  once  more  coming  into  repute.  Namann,  Julius  von 
Sachs,  W.  Haacke,  and  many  zoologists,  are  falling  away 
from  Darwinism  to  such  an  extent  that  at  the  Congress 
of  Naturalists,  in  1897,  Wilser  made  the  bold  statement, 
*'He  who  is  not  done  with  Darwin  hardly  deserves  to 
be  called  a  naturalist;"  and  not  one  was  found  to  con- 
tradict him.  Science  confesses  more  and  more,  with 
Dr.  K.  Miiller :  "It  was  a  great  thought  of  Darwin's  to 
make  all  organisms  evolve  one  from  the  other.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  a  glance  at  the  fossil  creatures 
of  the  various  creation  periods  dispels  this  beautiful 
idea."     (Die  Natur,  January,  1893.) 

In  the  face  of  facts  the  theory  is  gradually  becom- 
ing, like  Hegel's  philosophy,  a  thing  of  the  past  in  so 
far  as  it  claims  to  be  a  creation  theory,  and  apart  from 
the  incontestable  services  which  Darwin  has  rendered 
to  science,  though  it  will  probably  long  be  brought  into 
the  field  by  those  who,  for  divers  reasons,  would  be 
glad  if  it  were  true.  The  word  of  God,  ten  times  re- 
peated in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Bible,  ''Each  after  his 
kind,"  still  stands  firm. 

And  it  is  good  that  it  is  so;  for  the  natural  conclu- 
sions from  such  a  doctrine  are  anything  but  pleasing. 
If  man  were  once  an  animal,  he  may — nay,  by  Darwin's 
theory,  he  must — under  changed  and  more  and  more 
unfavorable  conditions — for  example,  a  new  ice-period — 
become  once  more  an  animal,  and  that  long  before  the 
final  "entropy"  of  the  universe.  Spiller's  belief  that  the 
last  men  will  be  Equatorial  Eskimos,  has  already  been 


132  Science  and  Christianity 

noticed.  Who  can  guarantee  that,  as  the  eccentricity 
of  the  orbits  of  heavenly  bodies  increases  during  thou- 
sands of  years,  and  then  as  slowly  decreases,  evolution 
will  not  some  day  of  itself  take  a  backward  tendency, 
and  man  return  through  the  various  forms  to  the  pri- 
mordial cell  before  the  final  end  of  the  solar  system? 
Professor  Yung,  of  the  University  of  Geneva,  teaches 
"that  according  to  the  inexorable  laws  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,"  men  will,  in  consequence  of  the  advance 
of  industry  on  one  hand,  and  locomotion  on  the  other,  in 
another  thousand  years  possess  longer  and  stronger 
arms,  and  shorter  and  weaker  legs — will,  in  short,  look 
very  like  monkeys. 

If  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  further  consequences 
of  this  doctrine,  we  see  the  man  of  the  future  as  a  very 
curious  being.  In  a  few  thousand  years,  with  natural 
selection,  such  as  must  result  from  continued  evolution, 
there  will  be  various  races  of  men:  humpbacked  peas- 
ants, with  enormous  arms;  large-headed  students,  with 
short-sighted  eyes,  which  see  only  at  reading  distance, 
and  shrunken  legs;  many-fingered  pianists;  postmen 
consisting  almost  solely  of  two  long  legs;  porters 
broader  than  their  height;  and  so  on.  A  sad  and  eerie 
prospect ! 

We  ask,  however,  if  changes  such  as  Professor 
Yung  prophesies  are  to  be  expected  in  a  thousand  years, 
how  comes  it  that  during  the  lapse  of  several  thousand 
years  in  India,  with  its  strict  system  of  caste,  and  in 
Egypt,  where  the  trade  or  profession  has  descended  from 
father  to  son  through  so  many  generations  (which  comes 
to  much  the  same  thing  as  natural  selection),  no  new 
types  of  men  have  been  formed? 


Christians  and  Science  133 

Quite  recently,  since  the  above  was  written,  the 
evolutionist  and  Radical  leader,  Clemenceau,  has  spoken 
clearly  in  the  preface  to  his  book,  "La  Melee  Sociale," 
"He  who  says  evolution,  says  curve.  When  the  high- 
est point  is  reached  there  remains  nothing  but  the  slow 
or  rapid  decline  to  unavoidable  destruction."  And  he 
continues:  "The  hour  of  revenge  for  the  lower  nature 
upon  the  higher  has  come.  Life,  which  began  in  a 
birth-hour  of  happiness,  will  end  in  the  greatest  misery. 
Nevertheless  infirmity  and  the  weakness  of  age  will 
prevent  mankind  from  feeling  the  full  horror  of  its  loss." 
And  as  sole  consolation  he  holds  out  to  man  "the  capa- 
bility of  dreaming,  le  reveT    (Kigaro,  March,  1895.) 

Every  error  bears  in  itself  the  germ  of  decay.  We 
see  the  men  who  only  a  few  years  ago  proclaimed  tri- 
umphantly to  the  world  that  we  are  descended,  not  from 
God,  but  from  an  ape,  now  shocked  and  filled  with  gloom 
at  the  consequences  of  their  own  teaching. 

The  great  mistake  of  Darwinism  is  the  ignoring  of 
the  sacredness  of  individuality  as  a  fundamental  con- 
dition and  the  chief  pillar  of  the  creation.  If  this  indi- 
viduality be  but  the  product  of  blind  influences  and  nat- 
ural forces,  without  a  Divine  idea  as  its  immortal  dia- 
mond kernel,  the  universe  sinks  ninety-nine  per  cent  in 
value.  No  wonder  that  the  materialist  who  consciously 
or  unconsciously  strives  to  underrate  creation,  nature, 
and  to  bring  it  down  to  his  own  level,  greeted  this  un- 
spiritual  doctrine  with  sympathetic  acclamation.  But, 
pleasingly  and  seductively  as  it  was  propounded,  it  was 
never  really  beautiful  and  elevating.  The  belief  that, 
according  to  Darwin,  God,  according  to  the  materialist, 
primal  matter,  put  life  into  a  primitive  cell,  and  then 


134  Science  and  Christianity 

left  the  poor  thing  exposed  to  all  the  chances  of  a  blind 
struggle  for  existense,  so  that,  according  to  wind  and 
weather,  heat  or  cold,  damp  or  dryness,  hunger  or  abun- 
dance, it  developed,  now  into  this,  now  into  that  form; 
and  that  a  giraffe,  in  order  to  keep  alive  in  a  time  of 
drought,  stretched  forelegs  and  neck  till  it  attained  its 
present  shape — this  doctrine  of  a  chaos  of  possibili- 
ties, accidents,  and  exertions  has  never  impressed  me 
with  its  grandeur,  and  if  it  were  true,  we  should  have 
cause  to  mourn;  for  its  spiritual  results  are  terrible. 

If  God  had  not  given  each  species  a  fixed  and  per- 
manent existence,  and  if  the  organic  life  of  the  earth 
were  to  move  in  varying,  changeable,  ever-evolving 
forms,  it  would  be  a  state  of  things  more  harmful  to  our 
spiritual  life  than  if  day  and  night,  weeks,  months,  and 
years,  summer  and  winter,  size  and  weight  of  the  earth, 
were  indefinite  and  varying  quantities;  for  our  thought 
and  our  spiritual  and  intellectual  Hfe  are  inseparably 
bound  up  with  the  existences  of  creation.  If  the  species 
is  not  unchangeable,  then  the  rock  on  which  our  speech 
and  thought  is  built,  the  substantive  or  nomen,  shakes 
and  crumbles.  We  have  no  longer  any  substantives, 
only  attributes;  and  the  immediate  result  is  that  gradually 
the  temporary  appearance  is  confused  with  the  essence 
of  the  thing:  noun  and  adjective  are  merged  in  one  an- 
other, and  become  of  equal  value.  With  vagueness  and 
uncertainty  as  to  the  boundaries  of  the  single  phenome- 
non language  would  become  vague,  hazy,  indefinite, 
just  as  children  and  uneducated  people  call  everything 
of  which  they  have  not  a  clear  notion  a  ''thing;"  and 
the  inevitable  consequence  would  be  that  our  thought, 
our  intellectual  life,  would  become  indefinite,  confused, 


Christians  and  Science  135 

more  and  more  worthless.  The  Indestructibility  of  the 
species  is  the  necessary  condition  of  a  healthy  mental 
development.  Its  changeableness  would  mean  the  in- 
tellectual ruin  of  humanity.  For  that  an  animal  should 
of  itself  acquire  horns  or  a  bushy  tail  would  not,  after 
all,  be  so  very  wonderful,  and  for  the  materialist,  who 
believes  that  oxen  butt  because  they  have  horns,  quite 
natural.  But  for  him  who  believes  that  the  breath  of 
God  made  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  that  the 
body  is  to  this  day  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the 
indwelling  soul,  which  requires  eyes  to  see,  as  well  as 
horns  to  push  and  claws  to  scratch,  the  question  is  not, 
whether  the  body,  but  whether  the  soul,  the  inward  vital 
principle,  with  its  qualities,  its  instincts,  its  character- 
istics, can  so  change  that  by  degrees  a  rose  becomes  a 
nettle,  a  louse  a  bee  or  ant,  a  lamb  a  hyena,  a  turtle- 
dove a  vulture,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  that  the 
soul  of  a  rat  could  live  in  a  nightingale,  that  of  a  swallow 
in  a  rattlesnake,  that  of  a  toad  in  a  butterfly,  or  that  of 
a  lamb  in  a  tiger. 

What  is  the  soul  according  to  the  Darwinian  idea? 
A  featureless  and  characterless,  an  immaterial  but  form- 
less protoplasm,  a  substratum  difficult  to  define;  all  dis- 
tinctions between  good  and  bad,  pure  and  impure,  tal- 
ented and  stupid  individuaHties  cease;  that  is,  they  are 
only  passing  wavelets  on  a  sea  of  unconscious  conscious- 
ness, have  no  permanent  and  consequently  no  real  worth. 
This  view  pushed  to  its  logical  conclusion  denies  the 
continuance  of  individual  existence,  therefore  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul. 

When  God  had  created  everything  ^^ after  his  kind" 
he  saw  ^Hhat  it  was  good.'" 

*  *  * 


136  Science  and  Christianity 

The  gradual  extinction  and  death  of  the  universe, 
the  ''entropy"  of  which  we  hear  so  much  nowadays, 
is  also  founded  on  a  one-sided  and  arbitrary  explanation 
of  certain  facts.  We  see  that  in  the  sky  there  are  suns 
of  all  kinds;  some  Hke  Sirius,  Vega,  and  Regulus,  shining 
with  a  white  light;  others  like  our  sun,  Capella,  and 
Pollux  with  a  yellow,  others  again  with  a  red  light.  We 
conclude  from  observations,  therefore  from  facts,  that 
the  last  class  contains  more  variable  suns  than  the  first; 
the  probability  is  that  these  red  suns  were  once  yellow, 
and  earlier  still  white;  but  are  now  gradually  going  out; 
and  we  ascribe  their  changeableness,  partly  at  least,  to 
a  gradual  formation  of  slag  on  the  surface.  But  to  make 
from  this  a  statement  that  all  the  suns  in  the  sky  were 
at  one  time  white,  that  all  of  them,  ours  included,  will 
one  day  become  red  and  colder,  and  that  from  this  may 
be  deduced  an  eventual  refrigeration,  a  death  from  old 
age  of  the  whole  universe — a  thought  which  implies 
either  that  there  is  no  God,  or  that  God  will  find  himself 
unable  to  keep  his  creation  in  life,  his  power  in  circula- 
tion, will  in  short  become  bankrupt — is  to  put  an  inter- 
pretation on  facts  which  outstrips  the  facts  themselves, 
and  all  for  love  of  a  theory. 

According  to  Flammarion  there  does  not  appear  to 
be  a  single  bright  star  missing  from  among  those  in  the 
list  left  by  Ptolemy.  If  within  recent  times  seven  stars 
have  disappeared  from  the  sky,  burnt  out,  extinct,  dead, 
thirteen  new  ones  have  made  their  appearance;  if  some 
have  become  redder,  others  have  grown  whiter.  The 
beautiful  star,  Capella,  appeared  red  to  Ptolemy.  At 
present  it  is  of  a  whitish  yellow,  and  has  increased  so 
much  in  brilliance  that  it  now  outshines  Vega.     The 


Christians  and  Science  137 

star  6  in  Perseus  has  in  the  short  space  of  forty  years 
changed  from  red  to  white,  and  the  double  star  96  in 
Hercules,  which  was  at  first  green  and  red,  is  now  white. 
But  in  Sirius,  that  gigantic  sun,  which  is  probably  five 
thousand  times  brighter  than  ours,  we  have,  according 
to  the  clear  and  unanimous  testimony  of  Cicero,  Horace, 
and  Seneca,  a  striking  example  of  a  sun  once  red,  redder 
than  Mars,  and  now  a  brilhant  white.  It  has,  therefore, 
within  a  very  short  time — for  what  are  two  thousand 
years  on  the  dial  of  heaven? — and  from  causes  unknown, 
increased  several  hundred  times  in  light  and  heat,  with 
which  increase  there  was  probably  connected  a  corre- 
sponding augmentation  of  brilliancy  and  vitality  in  its 
planets  and  satellites.  All  the  suns  in  the  heavens  are 
not,  then,  losing  in  light  and  heat,  but  many,  perhaps 
most  of  them,  are  growing  in  both,  we  know  neither 
how  nor  why. 

This  shows  that  the  "entropy'^  of  the  universe  has  no 
foundation  in  fact,  but  is  only  an  arbitrary,  if,  to  many, 
possible  interpretation  of  certain  isolated  facts.  Sup- 
ported by  other  facts,  we  can  reply  with  justice  to  the 
believer  in  this  theory:  The  universe  is  not  tending 
towards  impending  extinction,  but  towards  a  fuller  and 
more  glorious  life  through  increase  in  force  and  light 
and  heat.  Yet,  considering  the  brief  space  we  have  had 
in  which  to  observe  the  starry  heavens,  that,  too,  is  a 
hasty  assertion  unwarranted  by  facts  as  they  at  present 
stand. 

In  studying  science,  then,  the  principal  thing  is  to 
learn  to  discriminate  between  fact  and  explanation,  to 
revere  the  positive  fact,  to  test  the  explanation  given. 
Where  a  reasonable,  probable  explanation,  covering  as 


138  Science  and  Christianity 

far  as  possible  (for  none  ever  does  so  entirely)  all  the 
facts,  is  offered,  accept  it  thankfully;  but  beware  of  the 
present  craze  for  explaining  everything.  Why  not  when 
asked,  "How  do  you  explain  that?"  answer  candidly: 
''I  do  not  explain  it  at  all.  I  study  the  facts,  and  wait." 
The  more  learned  the  man,  the  better  he  knows  how 
little  it  is  really  possible  to  explain. 


In  the  third  place,  their  dislike  to  science  in  general 
is  due,  on  the  part  of  many  Christians,  to  a  one-sided 
view  of  the  great  truth  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons, and  that  he  gives  his  Holy  Spirit  to  the  ignorant 
and  babes,  as  well  as  to  the  sages  and  wise  men  of  this 
world.  Without  wishing  to  take  one  iota  from  the  say- 
ing of  Christ,  ''I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  because  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the 
wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes" 
(St.  Matt,  xi,  25),  we  would  earnestly  beg  the  reader  to 
bethink  himself  how  God,  in  order  to  carry  out  his 
great  purposes  in  the  world's  history,  did  not  choose 
ignorant  men  who  cared  nothing  for  knowledge  and  sci- 
ence, for  human  skill  and  learning,  but  honored  with  his 
iriendship  and  communion  and  inspired  as  writers  of 
liis  Word  those  who,  like  Abraham,  were  princes  of  the 
people  and  associated  with  kings;  who,  like  Moses, 
-were  instructed  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians; 
like  Job,  whose  utterances  are  full  of  the  deepest  knowl- 
edge of  men  and  nature;  like  David,  who  composed  un- 
rivaled hymns  and  odes  on  the  subject  of  nature;  like 
Solomon,  who  ''spake  three  thousand  proverbs,  and  his 


Christians  and  Science  139 

songs  were  a  thousand  and  five.  And  he  spake  of  trees, 
from  the  cedar-tree  that  is  in  Lebanon  even  unto  the 
hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the  wall :  he  spake  also  of 
beasts  and  of  fowl  and  of  creeping  things  and  of  fishes" 
(i  Kings  iv,  ^2,  ^^);  like  Daniel,  of  whom  it  is  written: 
''Daniel  was  preferred  above  the  presidents  and  princes, 
because  an  excellent  spirit  was  in  him;  and  the  king 
thought  to  set  him  over  the  whole  realm."  (Dan.  vi,  3.) 
When  Christ  speaks  in  the  above-quoted  passage  of  the 
wise,  he  means,  it  is  clear,  the  wise  of  this  world,  those 
who  think  themselves  wise;  that  he  does  not  mean 
the  wise  in  God  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  not  only  the 
shepherds  but  the  wise  men  from  the  East  came  and 
paid  him  homage.  They  offered  to  him  gold  as  King, 
frankincense  as  the  Lord's  Anointed,  and  myrrh  as  sym- 
bol of  his  bitter  sufferings — all  of  which  they  foresaw  by 
means  of  their  wisdom;  for  they  were  astrologers,  or, 
more  correctly  speaking,  astrosophists,  and  read  in  the 
stars  more  things  and  greater  than  Laplace  in  his 
''Mecanique  Celeste."  Finally,  as  his  instruments  for 
preaching  the  gospel  to  the  heathen,  and  for  doing  the 
greatest  work  of  all,  God  chose  St.  Paul,  who  was  better 
instructed  in  the  learning  of  the  scribes  than  all  the  other 
apostles.  And  similarly  we  see  how,  since  then,  all  the 
leaders  of  Christendom,  the  true  princes  of  the  Church 
and  spiritual  pastors  of  mankind,  the  fathers  of  the 
Church,  the  reformers,  Augustine  and  Luther  and  many 
others,  were  by  no  means  uneducated  and  ignorant  men; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  so  many-sided  were  they  that,  to 
use  the  words  of  the  Roman  poet,  nothing  which  could 
interest  mankind  did  they  count  as  strange  to  them. 
Of  them  we  may  confidently  say,  that  did  they  live  to- 


140  Science  and  Christianity 

day  they  would  gladly  avail  themselves  of  modern  sci- 
ence to  proclaim  aloud  their  belief  in  a  wise  and 
Almighty  God  and  Creator  of  the  universe,  as  the  infidel 
uses  it  as  a  text  from  which  to  preach  a  godlessness 
which  lies  not  in  it,  but  in  himself. 

Let  us,  then,  beware  of  drawing  too  great  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Spirit  of  God, 
which  enables  us  to  attain  knowledge  and  which  also  is 
holy;  in  other  words,  between  the  inner  and  the  outward 
life,  as  if  they  stood  in  opposition  to  one  another.  The 
earnest  study  of  nature  in  a  God-fearing  spirit  of  mind 
does  not  lead  us  away  from  God,  does  not  weaken  faith, 
does  not  cloud  the  eye  of  the  soul;  on  the  contrary,  he 
who  has  brought  God  and  nature  into  unison  in  his 
heart,  thanks  God  daily  for  it;  the  disputes  and  conten- 
tions of  men  of  science  do  not  affect  him,  even  though 
he  is  obliged  to  confess  that  there  is  much  he  does  not 
understand.  Everywhere  he  feels  himself  surrounded 
by  the  power  and  might  of  God's  love,  in  air  and  wind, 
in  spring  and  brook  and  sea,  in  stone  and  plant  and  ani- 
mal; all  are  to  him  eternal  thoughts  of  God;  he  rejoices 
that,  even  with  his  purblind  eyes,  he  is  able  to  recognize 
something  at  least  of  the  marvels  of  God's  creation;  he 
rejoices  in  the  hope  of  one  day  attaining  to  the  true 
universe,  true  nature,  where  true  light  and  true  matter, 
true  life  and  true  forces,  true  unity  of  all  being,  and  true 
forms,  constitute  a  true  and  eternal  creation,  the  under- 
standing of  which  will  be  our  appointed  task,  and  for 
the  glory  of  which  we  shall  praise  God  to  all  eternity. 

It  is  owing  to  this  exaggerated  distinction  between 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Spirit  of  God  that  there  arises 
with  many  Christians  a  supposed  conflict  between  sci- 


Christians  and  Science  141 

ence  and  miracle.  On  this  point  there  is  a  want  of  clear 
thought  and  calm  reflection.  Why  not  look  upon .  a 
miracle  as  that  which  it  professes  to  be,  as  that  apart 
from  which  it  would  be  no  miracle — as  something  hap- 
pening outside  the  limits  of  the  known  laws  of  nature, 
be  it  an  occurrence  in  obedience  to  higher  laws,  be  it 
an  arbitrary  and  supernatural  intervention  of  God. 
From  this  simple  position  with  regard  to  a  miracle,  and 
this  definition,  which  is  contained  in  the  Word  itself, 
two  things  follow :  First,  the  absurdity  of  denying  it.  To 
maintain  that  no  miracle  has  ever  taken  place,  that  such 
a  thing  is  impossible,  is  nothing  else  than  to  maintain 
we  know  all  the  forces  and  laws  and  possibilities  in  the 
universe !  For  four  thousand  years  we  have  noted  and 
investigated  so  thoroughly  every  single  fact  in  the  life 
of  the  individual  and  of  the  nation,  every  phenomenon 
of  nature  and  the  universe  in  general,  that  we  are  able 
to  determine  what  is  possible  and  what  impossible. 
During  this  brief  span  of  time  we  have  been  able  to  draw 
certain  and  infallible  conclusions  as  to  all  that  has  hap- 
pened and  ever  will  happen.  We  see  at  once  what 
foolish  presumption  that  is.  For,  as  Maudsley  remarks, 
"It  is  the  presumption  of  human  ignorance  to  hold  that 
a  thing  is  impossible,  simply  because  it  seems  to  us  in- 
comprehensible." Science  is  not,  and  never  will  be,  in 
a  position  to  decide  with  Infallibility  what  can  and  what 
can  not  be.  Therefore  the  possibility  of  a  miracle,  as 
something  apparently  incomprehensible,  is  not  to  be 
denied.  The  old  discussion  as  to  whether  it  results  from 
the  operation  of  laws  unknown,  or  from  a  direct  and 
sudden  dispensation  of  God,  is  for  us  idle  and  unprofit- 
able.   We  know  of  no  laws  of  nature  which,  once  set  in 


142  Science  and  Christianity 

motion  by  God,  now  work  independently  like  a  clock 
constructed  and  wound  up  once  for  all.  What  we,  for 
the  sake  of  brevity  and  convenience,  call  natural  forces 
are  really  a  continual  exercise  of  the  power  of  God,  an 
emanation  of  his  will,  as  in  Revelation  iv,  11,  the  celes- 
tial choir  sings,  "Thou  hast  created  all  things,  and  for 
Thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created."  If  it  pleased 
God  to  withdraw  this  second  into  a  state  of  inaction 
as  regards  creation,  the  universe  would  melt  away,  and 
the  forces  of  nature  would  cease  to  exist.  In  so  far 
there  is  for  us  nothing  which  can,  strictly  speaking,  be 
called  natural,  all  is  divine;  and  we  might  just  as  well 
say  every  form  of  existence  is  a  miracle,  as  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  miracle. 

The  second  result  that  follows  from  the  above  defi- 
nition of  a  miracle  is  the  impossibility  of  scientifically 
disputing  it.  A  miracle  is  altogether  outside  the  prov- 
ince of  scientific  criticism.  This  was  acknowledged  by 
the  great  scientist,  Tyndall,  who  was  by  no  means  a 
believer  in  the  Bible,  yet  admitted  that  if  there  is  a  God 
he  is  almighty,  and  can  therefore  work  miracles;  and 
that  miracles,  if  there  is  such  a  thing,  have  nothing  to 
do  with  science,  but  lie  outside  her  province.  Quite 
true,  we  say,  and  would  recommend  this  utterance  of  a 
man  of  the  first  rank  to  those  of  tenth  rank  who  delight 
in  confronting  miracles  with  science — a  proceeding 
much  like  shooting  at  the  sun  with  a  revolver,  and 
thinking  if  only  the  weapon  were  more  perfect  we  should 
hit  it.  Many  understand  by  the  saying  that  science  has 
done  away  with  miracles,  the  fact  that  it  has  taught  and 
is  constantly  teaching  man  that  what  he  took  for  a 
supernatural  occurrence  is,  when  looked  at  by  the  light 


Christians  and  Science  143 

of  science,  quite  natural,  and,  it  is  added  by  superficial 
men,  quite  simple.  No  doubt  the  Indian  who  first  saw 
the  locomotive  rushing  over  the  prairie  whistling  shrilly 
took  it  for  a  supernatural  being,  a  terrible  monster. 
Science,  in  the  person  of  the  mechanic,  can  make  clear 
to  him  the  facts  of  the  case,  how  by  boiling  water  steam 
is  produced,  which  sets  the  engine  in  motion,  etc.,  thus 
relieving  him  of  his  superstitious  fears.  One  of  the  uses 
of  science  is  to  explain  the  conditions  under  which  phe- 
nomena take  place,  and  that  is  as  it  should  be.  But  does 
any  one  imagine  that  after  this  explanation  the  Indian 
and  the  mechanic  were  any  the  wiser  as  to  why  heat 
generates  steam  and  exercises  force,  or  as  to  what  heat 
itself  is?  Do  you  believe  that  the  foremost  electrician 
of  Germany  knows  what  electricity  is?  No!  and  the 
greater  he  is  in  his  profession,  the  more  ready  and  will- 
ing he  will  be  to  confess  the  fact.  The  locomotive,  that 
marvelous  combination  of  matter  and  force,  is  to  the 
intellectual  man  a  far  greater  marvel  than  the  supposed 
monster  is  to  the  ignorant  Indian. 

The  very  essence  of  a  miracle  is  its  intangibility  by 
proofs  and  reasoning,  its  incomprehensibility  and  its  in- 
capability of  being  proved.  He  who  tries  to  understand 
and  to  explain  a  miracle,  to  comprehend  or  to  fix  such 
a  flash  of  illimitable,  Divine  power,  shows  that  he  does 
not  know  what  a  miracle  is,  and  in  his  attempt  to  explain 
it  only  succeeds  in  making  a  fool  of  himself,  both  from 
the  scientific  and  the  Christian  point  of  view.  A  miracle 
scientifically  proved  and  explained  would  be  a  logical 
contradiction.  No  zoology,  however  advanced,  will  ever 
be  able  to  prove  that  Balaam's  ass  was  not  miraculously 
endowed  with  speech;  no  physics,  however  deep  and 


144  Science  and  Christianity 

highly-developed,  that  the  three  men  were  burnt  in  the 
fiery  furnace;  or  that  Christ  must  have  sunk  when  walk- 
ing on  the  sea.  For  even  a  child  must  have  recognized 
that  these  things  were  contrary  to  nature.  He  who 
allows  his  belief  in  miracles  to  be  reasoned  away,  or  even 
shaken,  by  professedly  scientific  arguments,  is,  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  sadly  lacking  in  perspicacity,  and  would 
do  well  to  test  his  conception  of  an  Almighty  God,  and 
find  out  what  he  really  does  believe.  God  is  miracle, 
and  he  who  does  not  believe  in  miracles  does  not  beHeve 
in  God,  even  though  he  believes  that  he  believes  in  him; 
that  is  to  say,  he  is  mentally  too  weak  to  grasp  both. 
A  miracle  can  not  be  grasped  by  the  intellect  any  more 
than  a  sunbeam  can  be  grasped  with  the  hand;  it  must 
be  seen  by  and  in  the  spirit.  For  this  reason  small 
natures  have  in  all  times  been  inclined  to  ridicule  the 
idea  of  a  miracle  just  because  it  goes  beyond  their 
horizon,  while  in  all  ages  and  nations  there  have  been 
great,  deep-thinking,  and  clear-sighted  men  who  have 
believed  it;  hence  the  proverb:  All  great  men  are  super- 
stitious! The  question  does  not  by  any  means  depend 
on  whether  you  can  believe  any  special  miracle,  such  as 
the  translation  of  Elijah,  or  Christ's  walking  on  the 
water.  A  miracle  is  as  little  to  be  explained  as  the  fact 
of  existence;  it  is,  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is,  if  to-day  or  to- 
morrow, or  in  ten  or  a  thousand  years,  something  may 
happen  which  is  not  in  accord  with  my  slight  experi- 
ence, with  my  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the 
universe — which  is,  or  appears  to  be,  in  direct  opposition 
to  them — then  all  at  once  any  miracle  becomes  possible, 
to-day,  yesterday,  or  to-morrow,  whether  it  be  the  sun 
standing  still  in  the  sky  without  any  consequent  dis- 


Christians  and  Science  145 

turbance  in  the  solar  system,  or  a  poor  child  finding  a 
penny  in  the  dust  in  answer  to  its  prayer.  We  who  be- 
lieve in  a  God,  believe  of  necessity  in  a  miracle,  for  a 
God  who  was  obliged  to  obey  self-made  laws  of  nature 
with  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  he  reveals  himself 
in  his  creation,  would  not  be  a  God  at  all.  Among  men 
we  see  often  enough  how  a  man  of  little  mental  ability 
will  see  only  one  way  out  of  a  difficulty,  or  perhaps  none 
at  all,  while  a  clever  man  will  find  a  dozen  excellent 
ways  and  means.  Man  knows  only  one  best;  God  an 
infinite  number,  because  he  is  Infinite  Good. 

There  are  sundry  facts  which  it  is  well  to  note  in 
connection  with  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible. 
First,  that  they  are  done  to  the  honor  of  God,  and  for 
the  weal  and  blessing  of  mankind.  (The  one  exception 
is  the  withering  of  the  barren  fig-tree  as  a  symbol  of  the 
rejection  of  Israel.)  The  miracle  has  a  moral  purpose 
and  an  ethical  value.  Secondly,  the  miracle  is  not  an 
arbitrary  sport  of  God,  but  has  an  aim  and  a  purpose, 
and,  unlike  the  wonders  of  the  fairy-tale,  occurs  in  ac- 
cordance with  natural  analogies  and  principles.  We  do 
not  find  organic  leaves  changed  into  inorganic  gold,  nor 
the  drops  of  blood  which  fell  from  the  Divine  brow  in 
Gethsemane  becoming  precious  stones,  nor  man 
changed  into  an  animal.  Thirdly,  the  miracle  is  always 
an  amplification  and  elevating  of  life,  and  answers  to 
the  secret  yearnings  of  man,  to  the  strivings  of  his  sci- 
ence. Bread  is  food,  and  our  scientists  to-day  aim  at 
manufacturing  food  from  inorganic  material.  Christ 
increases  its  nourishing  power,  and  feeds  thousands  with 
a  few  loaves.  Man  was  created  for  health  and  everlast- 
ing life;  and  the  aim  of  science  is  to  abolish  disease,  and 
10 


146  Science  and  Christianity 

some  say  death;  Christ  heals  the  sick  and  raises  the  dead 
in  pledge  of  future  health  and  immortality.  Man  was 
created  lord  of  the  elements  and  forces  of  nature;  we 
seek  to  invent  flying  machines  and  annihilate  space; 
Christ  walked  upon  the  sea  and  ascended  into  heaven 
from  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

Many  people  do  not  see  the  necessity  for  a  miracle. 
It  is  true  God  does  not  need  them;  he  does  not  perform 
miracles  for  his  own  sake;  for  him  there  are  no  miracles; 
the  creation  of  a  new  sun  or  the  birth  of  a  worm  are  the 
same  to  him.  But  for  our  sakes  he  performs  miracles; 
for  our  sakes,  that  we  may  not  be  led  to  worship  God  as 
nature,  nor  nature  as  God !  God  works  miracles  in 
order  to  show  himself  another  and  greater  than  this 
nature,  and  to  say  to  every  one  not  spiritually  blind: 
*'I  am  in  nature,  but  I  am  not  nature.  I  am  its  Creator, 
and  since  I  created  it  voluntarily,  I  can  at  any  time 
arbitrarily  alter  it."  Miracles  are  done  as  a  ''sign,"  the 
name  by  which  they  are  called  in  the  Bible.  That  is  the 
logical  ground  of  their  performance,  at  the  same  time 
a  concession  to  the  unbelieving.  ''Except  ye  see  signs 
and  wonders  ye  will  not  believe."  And  because  the  mir- 
acle shows  us  a  God  always  present,  always  ready  to 
intervene  for  his  honor,  for  the  help  of  his  people,  some- 
times for  the  judgment  of  unbelievers,  there  is  no  fact 
or  phenomenon  of  the  world's  history  which  the  devil 
combats  with  such  zeal,  even  though  with  wonted  in- 
consistency he  encourages  his  followers  to  believe  in  the 
coarsest  of  wonders,  such  as  spirit-rapping  and  fortune- 
telling. 

Nature  itself  teaches  us  to  believe  in  the  supernat- 
ural.    In  the  mineral  kingdom  the  plantlike  ramifica- 


Christians  and  Science  147 

tions  of  the  crystals  of  gold  and  silver,  and  the  fairy 
frost-flowers,  point  to  the  plant;  plants  which  move  and 
which  feed  on  flesh  are  indications  of  the  animal  world; 
the  barking  of  the  dog  and  the  singing  of  the  bird  pre- 
dict the  human  voice;  and  man  himself  is  a  foreshadow- 
ing of  the  angel  or  the  devil  which  he  will  become.  The 
sense  of  the  supernatural  is  born  in  man;  the  child  lives 
in  a  world  largely  made  up  of  the  supernatural  element. 
This  fact  ought  to  be  proof  sufficient  for  him  who  ac- 
cepts the  words  of  Christ,  "Except  ye  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
It  is,  however,  easier  to  believe  in  the  supernatural  in 
general  than  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  for  between  the 
two  lies  the  great  difference  between  theory  and  practice. 
Numbers  of  people  who  have  no  difficulty  in  believing 
that  long  ages  ago  God  created  the  world,  would  think 
it  very  strange  if  they  were  told  that  God  has  this  morn- 
ing created  a  grain  of  sand.  And  others  who  grant  the 
existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  somewhere  very  far  off, 
would  smile  if  I  told  them  that  this  Supreme  Being  had 
this  morning  answered  my  prayer.  They  can  put  up 
with  the  supernatural;  that  belongs  to  philosophy,  al- 
most to  science.  But  to  believe  in  miracles !  Think  of 
all  it  means,  think  of  all  it  leads  to ! 

Man  can  not  get  away  from  miracles;  even  the  mate- 
rialist believes  in  them.  Not  in  those,  it  is  true,  which 
happened  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  to  which 
many  trustworthy  men  bore  witness,  more  than  one  of 
whom  sealed  that  witness  with  his  life;  but  in  such  as 
happened  millions  of  years  ago,  which  were  observed 
by  none  who  could  testify  to  their  genuineness.  That 
he  may  not  have  to  believe  in  a  creation  he  believes  in 


148  Science  and  Christianity 

an  unproved  spontaneous  generation,  or  imports  at 
great  expense  life-germs  from  other  worlds.  That 
Christ  raised  the  dead,  made  an  organism  which  had 
lived  live  again,  he  does  not  believe;  but  he  does  believe 
that  organisms  were  generated  by  dead  matter.  That 
God  for  a  special  purpose  endowed  an  ass  with  speech, 
that  it  spoke  certain  words,  is  too  absurd  to  be  believed; 
but  that  an  ape,  without  knowing  why,  gradually  began 
to  talk,  and  that  all  the  asses  in  the  world  will  one  day 
speak  is,  or  ought  to  be,  seriously  believed  by  those  who 
hold  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  That  God,  the  Creator 
of  fire  and  of  men,  should  have  made  three  men  fire- 
proof for  a  few  minutes  seems  to  them  a  ridiculous 
legend;  but  they  believe  that  organic  germs  existed  for 
millions  of  years  in  the  glowing  cosmic  gas  and  in 
molten  granite.  Nay,  even  a  scientist  like  Tyndall  be- 
lieves that  all  life-germs,  the  inventive  faculty,  reason, 
and  will,  in  all  their  manifestations  were  once  'latent  in 
a  fiery  cloud!"    If  that  is  not  a  miracle,  what  is  it? 

The  noted  French  theologian.  Professor  Sabatier, 
writes,  ''The  theory  of  evolution  renders  the  miracle 
unnecessary."  Does  this  theory  then  explain  the  won- 
der of  wonders,  the  origin  of  all  things?  Whether  God 
creates  afresh  each  midge  and  each  elephant,  or  whether 
he  once  upon  a  time  created  a  primordial  cell  bearing 
in  it  all  the  germs  and  powers  of  evolution,  so  that  it 
reached  its  present  stage  of  development  under  the  in- 
fluence of  times  and  circumstances — which  are  also  the 
work  of  God — the  sum  of  miracles  remains  precisely  the 
same,  and  in  both  cases  amounts  to  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  creation  of  all  organisms. 

Neither  does  the  creation  of  a  primordial  cell  exclude 


Christians  and  Science  149 

the  possibility  of  a  miracle  at  any  time.  If  God  once 
created  such  a  cell,  he  can  create  another  to-day  or  to- 
morrow; or  are  we  to  suppose  that  since  then  he  has 
forgotten  how?  If  he  could  create  one,  he  can  create  a 
hundred,  a  thousand,  a  million;  then  he  can  Instantly — 
or  is  a  certain  time  necessary? — create  all  those  neces- 
sary to  the  reviving  of  a  dead  man,  and  to  the  future 
resurrection  of  the  body — there  is  the  miracle  again! 
Let  us  deny  God  altogether,  and  say:  The  primordial 
cell  created  itself.  But  alack !  here  we  have  something 
as  much  like  a  miracle  as  one  pea  is  like  another! 

We  finite  beings  move  in  infinity;  infinity  is  a  miracle 
to  the  finite  creature,  because  it  can  not  be  grasped  and 
comprehended  by  our  thought.  Because  we  live,  move, 
and  have  our  being  in  this  infinity,  our  whole  existence 
is  built  upon  and  bound  up  with  the  miracle.  The  soul 
is  a  miracle;  all  its  yearnings  are  after  something  greater 
and  more  lasting  than  this  visible  creation.  This  is  over- 
looked by  those  benevolent  and  charitable  souls  who 
seek  to  regenerate  the  world  by  means  of  philanthropic 
societies;  for  even  if  their  laudable  endeavors  succeeded 
beyond  all  expectation  the  world  would  not  become 
paradise,  nor  the  soul  of  man  be  satisfied  and  at  rest. 
For  this  breath  of  God  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
less  than  divine  power,  divine  wisdom,  and  the  wonders 
of  the  Divine.  A  miracle  unfathomable,  never  to  be 
unriddled,  is  the  origin  and  growth  of  man  in  his 
mother's  womb;  a  miracle  his  life  as  an  inexplicable 
union  and  interaction  of  spirit  and  matter,  soul  and 
body;  a  miracle  his  eating  and  drinking,  and  incompre- 
hensible the  fact  that  the  piece  of  bread  which  was  this 
morning  lying  upon  the  table  is  now  feeling  pain,  will- 


150  Science  and  Christianity 

ing  and  thinking  in  me,  as  flesh  and  blood  and  brain. 
And  as  life  is  a  miracle,  so  also  is  death ! 

Even  the  skeptic  Tyndall  writes:  ''Preoccupation 
alone  could  close  the  eyes  of  the  student  of  natural 
science  to  the  fact  that  the  long  line  of  his  researches 
is  in  reality  a  line  of  wonders.  There  are  freethinkers 
who  imagine  themselves  able  to  sound  with  their  penny 
twine-balls  the  ocean  of  immensity."  (New  Fragments, 
page  387.) 

Looking  at  things  in  their  true  light,  we  swim  in 
miracles  as  a  fish  in  the  ocean,  and  what  we  call  a  "mir- 
acle" is  only  the,  to  us,  unaccustomed  falling  of  a  few 
raindrops  into  this  infinite  and  fathomless  sea.  Instead 
of  the  common  saying  that  stupid  and  superstitious  men 
look  upon  natural  things  as  miraculous  whenever  they 
do  not  understand  them,  we  say  with  more  truth :  Stupid 
and  superficial  men  consider  miraculous  things  quite 
simple  and  natural  because  they  flatter  themselves  that 
they  understand  them.  For  the  miracle  is  an  essential 
part  and  element  of  all  existence  (so-called  ''chance"  for 
example),  and  not  one  earth-born  being  can  affirm,  "I 
understand,  I  comprehend,  I  have  mastered  it,"  of  one 
atom  in  the  great  All!  Take  refuge  in  the  notion  of 
eternal  matter;  hide  yourself  in  eternal  darkness;  here, 
too,  the  miracle  confronts  you,  an  image  of  the  omni- 
present God,  from  whom  it  is  impossible  to  flee. 

The  innate  and  unconquerable  liking  for  the  marvel- 
ous; fairy-tales,  for  example;  the  horror  and  delight  in 
it  which  all  men  have  experienced, — shows  that  the  mar- 
velous exists.  But  as  the  king's  son  stolen  in  infancy 
and  brought  up  as  a  swine-herd,  laughs  incredulously 
when  he  is  told  how  rich  and  powerful  his  father  is, 


Christians  and  Science  151 

how  he  himself  will  one  day  have  millions  at  his  disposal, 
rule  over  mighty  armies  and  a  multitude  of  servants,  so 
many  men  live  in  such  a  state  of  mental  inertia  and 
weakness  of  nerves,  that  they  put  down  with  a  fatuous 
smile  anything  marvelous  to  swindle  and  deception,  be- 
cause they  are  no  longer  capable  of  rising  above  the 
dead  level  of  the  commonplace.  Every  Divine  miracle 
(there  are  Satanic  miracles  too)  is  a  spiritualization  of 
matter,  a  release  from  the  bonds  of  so-called  natural 
laws,  a  lightning-like  transportation  into  the  realm  of 
eternal  nature,  an  emanation  from  and  a  proof  of  a 
higher,  fuller,  richer,  and  freer  world.  So  it  was  when 
Christ  walked  upon  the  water,  raised  the  dead,  and 
healed  the  sick;  for  man  was  created  that  he  might  be 
superior  to  the  elements  and  forces,  subject  neither  to 
disease  nor  death. 

To  the  scoffing  objection  that  the  miracle  will  not 
bear  the  light  of  science,  we  answer :  It  certainly  is  so. 
But  as  the  tender  root  on  which  the  life  of  the  plant 
depends  works  only  in  the  depths,  in  silence  and  dark- 
ness, drawing  life  from  death;  as  the  heart  of  man  hidden 
in  his  body  distributes  life  incessantly  to  the  whole  sys- 
tem; as  both  laid  bare  upon  the  dissecting-table  stand 
still  and  refuse  to  give  up  their  life-secret;  so  the  miracle, 
which  has  its  root  in  the  deepest  depths  of  the  soul,  is 
dumb  before  the  gaping  crowd,  and  demands  faith  in 
him  who  performs  it  and  him  who  witnesses  it.  ''He  did 
not  many  mighty  works  there  because  of  their  unbelief." 
(St.  Matt,  xiii,  58.)  Sympathy  and  interest  attract,  hos- 
tility always  paralyzes  and  kills;  that  is  an  eternal  spir- 
itual law.  Every  orator,  actor,  poet,  and  artist  knows 
how  he  is  either  paralyzed  by  the  coldness  and  ridicule 


152  Science  and  Christianity 

of  audience  and  spectators,  or  electrified  and  inspired  to 
highest  performance  by  sympathy.  The  strong,  faithful 
prayer  of  the  children  of  God  rises  to  heaven  and  moves 
the  Godhead  to  rain  down  wonderful  answers,  overleap- 
ing all  the  hedges  and  bounds  of  calculating  reason,  a 
fact  as  unintelligible  to  the  believer  as  sight  and  color 
to  the  blind.  The  miracle  has  this  in  common  with  all 
that  is  high  and  glorious,  that  it  requires  a  peculiar  sense 
for  its  perception.  He  who  approaches  the  Father  of 
spirits  with  repentance,  self-denial,  and  strong,  un- 
wearied supplication,  raises  himself  by  degrees  to  that 
world  where  the  miracle  is  native;  he  who  keeps  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  earth,  seeking  only  after  money,  ease,  and 
pleasure,  gradually  becomes  blind  to  the  higher  life;  the 
sense  of  spiritual  vision  weakens,  and  is  eventually  lost 
till  he  sees  in  the  highest  and  deepest  things,  in  the  true 
and  the  beautiful,  nothing  but  deceit  and  humbug!  A 
terrible  retribution ! 

But  we  are  told  miracles  never  happen  nowadays. 
How  can  you  be  sure  of  that?  Who  is  to  say  that  yester- 
day or  to-day,  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of  faith,  God  has 
not  miraculously  preserved  some  one  from  death  or  dan- 
ger. The  lives  of  Francke  in  Halle  and  Miiller  in  Bristol 
could  testify  to  many  miracles;  and  many  a  Christian 
could  tell  of  such  in  his  own  experience  if  he  would. 
But  those  things  are  not  to  be  proclaimed  to  the  world; 
they  are  kept  in  the  heart.  The  tidings  of  a  miracle 
have  never  spread  throughout  the  world;  the  occurrence 
has  always  been  related  as  natural  or  as  a  legend.  When 
Pharaoh  and  his  host  perished  in  the  Red  Sea,  it  was  told 
in  Egypt  that  they  had  been  caught  in  the  quicksands 
and  drowned  in  the  sea;  the  miracles  of  Christ  created 


Christians  and  Science  153 

no  sensation  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor.  Secondly, 
"there  is  a  time  for  everything,"  as  Solomon  says,  and 
also  for  the  miracle.  The  Bible  tells  of  no  miracle  per- 
formed during  the  fifteen  centuries  before  the  Flood, 
except  the  translation  of  Enoch,  which  was  not  public. 
Thirdly,  the  Bible  teaches  that  from  the  call  of  Abra- 
ham God  reserved  the  working  of  outward  and  material 
miracles  for  his  peculiar  people.  For  the  last  eighteen 
hundred  years  he  has  rejected  them,  and  is  deaf  to  their 
prayers.  For  those  who  know  their  Bible  the  era  of 
open  miracles  ceased  with  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
To  work  miracles  in  the  sight  of  the  degenerate  Chris- 
tendom of  to-day  would  be  to  cast  pearls  before  swine, 
and  would  only  bring  greater  condemnation.  It  is  said 
even  of  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Christ  when  they  saw  his 
miracles,  ''They  were  all  amazed,  and  glorified  God'' 
Would  that  be  the  efifect  of  a  miracle  worked  to-day  in 
the  streets  of  Berlin  or  Vienna,  Paris  or  London? 

Yet  even  in  the  present  day  the  God  of  miracles  is 
not  inactive.  He  is  gathering  together  out  of  all  na- 
tions an  invisible  Church,  to  whom  he  promises  not 
earthly  possessions,  but  heavenly  treasures.  It  is  in 
harmony  with  these  promises  that,  instead  of  granting 
to  his  Church  miraculous  victories,  the  drying  up  of 
rivers,  and  the  fall  of  cities,  he  now  works  spiritual 
wonders.  By  day  or  by  night,  in  field  or  in  workshop, 
in  the  hurry  of  life,  he  seizes  on  one  and  another,  turning 
his  heart  so  that  he  loves  what  he  hated,  and  hates  what 
he  loved;  so  that  the  world  becomes  a  shadow,  and  the 
heavenly  kingdom  alone  appears  a  reality;  so  that  at  last 
he  dies  full  of  joy  and  confidence,  while  the  world  looks 
on  death  with  horror.    Is  not  that  a  miracle? 

«  ^  3|( 


i54  Science  and  Christianity 

One  might  cry  to  many  of  the  educated  class  to-day, 
How  long  halt  ye  between  two  opinions?  If  the  Lord 
be  God,  follow  him;  but  if  Baal,  follow  him!  They 
coquette  with  unbelief,  and  yet  hesitate  to  throw  religion 
overboard.  They  accept  the  fact  that  there  is  a  God; 
but  not,  of  course,  the  human  conception  of  God  as  set 
forth  in  the  Bible.  They  talk  of  a  ''Supreme  Being,"  of 
a  ''merciful  Providence,"  of  a  "kind  fate;"  the  Bible  and 
Biblical  miracles  raise  a  smile  of  superiority;  the  account 
of  the  Creation  and  the  Fall  are  venerable  traditions, 
betraying  highly  primitive  ideas;  nevertheless  they  have 
their  children  baptized  into  that  faith,  taught  and  con- 
firmed in  the  belief  that  all  these  are  divine  truths.  They 
are  unpleasantly  affected  by  the  doctrine  of  repentance 
and  conversion;  but  also  by  the  materialistic  notion  that 
"faith,  hope,  and  love  are  nothing  but  chemical  pro- 
ducts!" They  take  in  papers  and  magazines  of  a  re- 
ligious character  for  their  children  and  servants,  but 
enlightened  periodicals  which  secretly  or  openly  make 
a  mock  at  true  Christianity  also.  In  the  morning  they 
listen  more  or  less  attentively  in  church  to  the  most 
uncompromising  of  preachers;  and  in  the  evening  to  a 
popular  lecture  on  science,  in  which  it  is  proved  that  the 
story  of  the  Creation  and  the  Deluge  are  legends  and 
myths.  In  short,  they  shrink  from  the  candid,  con- 
sistent carrying  out  of  a  principle,  from  any  mental 
struggle;  they  desire  to  figure  as  enlightened  Christians, 
as  a  dark  light,  or  a  cool  warmth,  and,  with  all  their 
tolerance,  good  intentions,  and  charitable  whitewashing, 
succeed  in  being  men  in  whom  neither  God  nor  the 
devil  can  take  any  pleasure. 

The  consequences  of  this  lack  of  character  are  ter- 


Christians  and  Science  155 

rible.  It  is  not  a  Nero,  not  an  Attila,  not  the  greatest 
criminals,  enemies  of  God,  and  anarchists,  who  demoral- 
ize the  world;  they  in  a  way  produce  good  by  being 
consistently  wicked  and  acting  as  a  warning.  For  every 
clear  manifestation  of  a  principle  is  salutary.  If  the  devil 
were  to  appear  on  earth  in  visible  form,  and  exactly  as 
he  is,  his  very  adherents  would  fall  away  from  him.  He 
knows  that,  and  hides  himself. 

The  present  social  disintegration  is  chiefly  due  to 
the  middle  and  upper  classes,  who  serve  as  example  to 
the  lower  orders;  who  think  themselves  and  wish  to  be 
considered  their  betters.  The  workingman  and  the  out- 
cast both  see  and  feel  how,  with  all  their  piety  and  re- 
spectability and  polish,  a  want  of  principle  and  a  com- 
fortable egotism  are  the  foundation  of  their  existence, 
and  how  the  one  aim  of  these  nominal  Christians  con- 
sists in  making  themselves  as  warm  and  comfortable 
as  possible  in  this  life,  in  direct  contravention  of  their 
Master's  Word.  Much  as  this  desire  clings  to  us  all,  a 
life  which  has  no  other  aim  is  despicable  and  worthless; 
for  the  animals,  too,  wish  to  live  as  comfortably  as  may 
be.  The  most  honest  course  would  be  to  drop  a  hypoc- 
risy which  deceives  neither  God  nor  man,  and  confess 
candidly :  ''I  live  in  this  world,  for  this  world,  and  with 
this  world;  but  as  a  precaution  and  from  cowardice  I 
should  like  to  leave  a  back-door  open  in  case  there  really 
is  something  in  the  Bible  and  religion,  the  day  of  judg- 
ment and  eternity." 

Let  us  aim  seriously  at  certainty  and  consistency 
especially  in  the  matter  of  religion;  for  in  this,  as  in 
nothing  else,  half-heartedness  and  hypocrisy  paralyze 
and  poison  the  whole  life.    That  is  an  awful  utterance : 


156  Science  and  Christianity 

"1  would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot.  So  then  because  thou 
art  lukewarm,  and  neither  cold  nor  hot,  I  will  spew  thee 
out  of  my  mouth." 

Many  may  say  with  regard  to  the  Christian  study  of 
nature  which  I  have  recommended:  "My  business,  my 
profession  does  not  allow  me  time  to  think  about  such 
things."  He  makes  a  great  mistake.  We  expect  of  a 
master  in  any  trade — nay,  we  require  of  him  by  law — 
that  he  should  not  overburden  his  apprentices  with  work 
so  that  they  have  no  time  left  for  their  mental  cultiva- 
tion. Does  God,  the  great  Master,  take  less  care  for  his 
apprentices,  and,  while  giving  them  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  earn  their  bodily  food,  withhold  it  as  concerns 
their  spiritual  sustenance? 

When  one  thinks  how  St.  Paul,  a  tentmaker,  found 
time  to  evangelize  the  world,  how  a  shoemaker  like 
Jacob  Boehme,  a  ribbon-weaver  like  Tersteegen,  a  tinker 
like  John  Bunyan,  while  working  diligently  at  their 
trade,  produced  spiritual  nourishment,  not  only  for  their 
own  benefit,  but  for  that  of  thousands,  one  must  confess 
with  shame:  It  is  not  time  we  want,  it  is  the  will!  O 
that  our  motto  were,  "Excelsior !"  For  heaven  is  high, 
and  many  who  would  fain  get  there  will  learn  to  their 
cost  that  God  is  high !  We  can  not  reach  him  by  grub- 
bing day  after  day,  week  after  week,  in  the  dust  of  earth, 
and  by  incessant  care  for  the  things  of  this  world,  nor 
even  by  working  diligently,  earning  an  honest  living 
and  saving  for  our  children,  laying  up  to  insure  for  our- 
selves and  them  a  life  free  from  anxieties !  That  do  also 
the  heathen! 

m         m         m 


Christians  and  Science  157 

Let  us  now  review  briefly  what  the  Bible  tells  us  of 
nature. 

It  does  not  begin  with  the  Fall,  and  the  promise 
of  redemption;  for  great  and  deserving  of  gratitude  as 
this  is,  God  did  not  create  man  in  order  that  he  might 
sin  and  be  redeemed.  Majestic  are  the  opening  words, 
*'In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth.'*  We  pass  through  this  gate  of  rock  from  Eter- 
nity into  Time.  These  are  the  Hercules'  pillars  of  hu- 
man thought,  beyond  which  rolls  the  infinite,  unfathom- 
able sea  of  the  Blessed  Godhead.  When  God  becomes 
once  more  all  in  all,  and  we  in  him,  we  shall  know  what 
moved  him  to  step  out  of  his  eternal  rest  and  self-suf- 
ficiency to  beget  the  Son,  and  to  create  all  things  in  and 
by  and  for  his  First-begotten.  But  as  long  as  we  remain 
in  this  mortal  body,  it  is  better  for  us  not  to  attempt 
to  understand  these  things,  for,  says  Jacob  Boehme, 
''that  troubles  the  soul."  Yet  pause  here  and  think, 
thou  wanderer  through  the  ages;  for  the  way  parts  here 
to  right  and  to  left.  If  these  first  words  are  not  true, 
throw  your  Bible  aside;  it  begins  with  a  lie !  But  if  there 
is  a  beginning,  a  God,  a  heaven,  and  an  earth,  then  the 
Bible  is  true  up  to  the  last  word  concerning  the  new 
heaven  and  the  new  earth.  You  are  a  Christian,  or  you 
are  not!  There  is  no  middle  way;  balance  as  cleverly  as 
you  may  on  the  tight-rope  your  life  long,  at  the  hour  of 
death  you  will  fall  to  the  right  or  to  the  left. 

''In  the  beginning,"  thus  all  religions  and  cosmog- 
onies commence.  We  shall  see  that  this  expression  is 
even  scientifically  more  justifiable  than  the  eternity  of 
matter.     After  this  great  utterance  the  Bible  turns  to 


158  Science  and  Christianity 

the  earth.  God  might  have  given  us  an  account  of  the 
heaven  of  heavens,  of  angels  and  archangels,  cherubim 
and  seraphim,  thrones  and  principalities;  and  let  us  know 
how  and  why  Satan  fell,  drawing  legions  of  angels  after 
him,  and  also  what  numberless  miracles  God  has 
wrought  by  his  mighty  Word  upon  the  millions  of  other 
worlds  than  ours.  But  had  he  written  it  in  heavenly 
language  we  should  not  have  understood  it;  related  in 
an  earthly  tongue  it  would  have  excited  in  us  insatiable 
questionings,  and  have  drawn  us  away  from  the  salu- 
tary contemplation  of  our  nothingness,  our  sinfulness, 
and  our  need  of  redemption.  Because  the  Bible  speaks 
to  the  inhabitants  of  earth,  it  speaks  a  human  and  earthly 
language.  It  speaks  of  the  sun  as  rising  and  setting, 
as  we  all  do,  even  the  greatest  astronomers,  although, 
strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  the  sun  that  moves,  but  the 
earth.  Herschel,  Arago,  Madler,  all  speak  in  their  books 
of  sunrise  and  sunset;  for  the  languge  is  properly  used 
of  the  appearance,  without  reference  to  the  actual  law. 
Or  ought  God  to  have  given  us,  besides  the  Bible  for 
the  people,  a  scientific  edition?  From  what  scientific 
standpoint,  then?  From  that  of  Ptolemy,  or  of  Coper- 
nicus, or  from  that  of  the  year  2000  or  3000?  Or  in 
accordance  with  his  own  absolute  knowledge,  thus  mak- 
ing the  book  unintelligible  to  us  all?  The  Bible  is  not 
intended  to  give  us  an  explanation  of  the  Creation,  its 
aim  is  to  show  us  God  in  creation. 

After  the  opening  words  the  Bible  passes  on  to  a 
description  of  the  Creation  in  grand  yet  simple  style, 
*'The  earth  was  without  form  and  void,  and  darkness 
was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep."  This  is  in  entire  con- 
formity with  science.    Over  a  hot  granite  crust  a  glow- 


Christians  and  Science  159 

ing  ocean,  and  beyond  that  an  impenetrable  atmosphere 
rich  in  carbonic  acid.  But  at  God's  Word  it  becomes 
light!  The  atmosphere  cools,  the  particles  of  vapor 
pour  downwards,  and  the  earth  swims  in  a  sea  of  light 
without  night;  in  and  through  the  primitive  nebu- 
losity of  the  universe  perhaps,  such  a  nebulosity  as  we 
see  in  the  vault  of  heaven.  It  would  be  unscientific  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  it.  ''And  God  said" — and  the 
atmosphere  clears  still  further,  becomes  air,  "a  firma- 
ment to  divide  the  waters  from  the  waters,"  an  appa- 
rently insignificant .  fact,  and  one  which  is  mentioned 
in  no  other  cosmogony;  and  yet  of  what  infinite  im- 
portance !  Ask  all  the  men  of  science  why  the  earth  is 
not,  owing  to  constant  evaporation,  enveloped  in  an  im- 
penetrable fog,  hiding  the  sun  and  making  all  study  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  an  impossibility.  Instead  of  that, 
high  above  us  soar  the  clouds  driven  by  the  winds,  and 
descend  to  water  the  earth.  A  tremendous  circulation 
of  the  waters,  important  as  that  of  the  blood  in  the  body, 
makes  possible  the  existence  of  this  "expansion,"  as  the 
Hebrew  has  it,  the  firmament,  the  air.  Unseen,  day 
and  night,  whole  Amazons  and  Mississippis  are  drawn 
up  to  the  heavens,  and  fall  again,  disintegrating  the 
mountains,  forming  Holland  of  mud  carried  down  from 
the  Alps,  the  South  American  plains  from  the  debris  of 
the  Cordilleras,  smoothing  and  leveling;  but  the  sub- 
terranean forces,  too,  are  continually  at  work,  moun- 
tains are  rising  and  seas  sinking. 

And  the  evening  came  on — for  even  then  ''God 
called  the  light  [the  light-time  of  whatever  length  it 
might  be]  Day,  and  the  darkness  he  called  Night." 
(Genesis  i,  5.)     In  this  fifth  verse  we  are  clearly  given 


i6o  Science  and  Christianity 

to  understand  that  God  is  not  restricted  to  any  par- 
ticular length  of  day;  the  days  are  simply  epochs  of 
light  interrupted  by  periods  of  darkness;  the  Bible  says 
nothing  as  to  their  duration,  and  we  have  instances 
enough  of  the  use  of  the  Hebrew  word,  yom,  to  express 
an  indefinite  space  of  time  (Genesis  xxv,  33;  Isaiah  ii, 
17,  20,  etc.)  After  a  long  day  of  light  the  volcanic 
forces  of  the  deep  broke  forth,  like  the  eruption  of 
Jorullo  in  Mexico  (1734),  and  of  late  years  the  sinking 
of  Krakatoa  near  Java,  only  much  more  violent;  and 
enveloped  the  earth  in  long-continued  darkness,  com- 
pletely in  accordance  with  science.  Then  God  said, 
"Let  the  waters  under  the  heaven  be  gathered  together, 
and  let  the  dry  land  appear."  And  two  worlds  arose, 
two  contrasts  as  widely  different  as  day  and  night,  the 
height  and  the  depth.  What  lives  in  water  dies  on  land; 
what  lives  on  land  dies  in  the  sea.  "And  God  said. 
Let  the  earth  bring  forth !"  The  Word,  the  Logos  did 
it,  not  atoms  and  the  forces  of  nature;  they  know  noth- 
ing of  life;  how  should  they  be  able  to  bring  it  out  of 
death?  And  on  the  new-born  land  sprang  into  being  all 
kinds  of  plants  in  the  hot  air,  so  rich  in  carbonic-acid 
gas;  thick  forests  full  of  a  rank,  luxurious  vegetation, 
araucaria,  calamites,  tree-ferns,  those  of  our  coal- 
deposits.  The  universal  distribution  of  these  plants  even 
to  the  Poles  is  a  proof  that  the  temperature  of  our  globe 
was  at  that  period  uniform,  the  source  of  heat  being 
other  than  the  sun,  which  was  as  yet  uncreated.  Cuvier, 
the  founder  of  palaeontology,  says  in  his  "Discotirs  sur 
les  revolutions  dii  globe:''  "Moses  has  left  us  a  cosmogony 
the  exactitude  of  which  is  more  wonderfully  confirmed 
with  every  day." 


Christians  and  Science  i6i 

It  IS  ridiculous  pedantry  to  charge  the  Bible  and 
Moses  with  inexactness  and  falsehood  because  in  fixing 
the  chief  events  of  the  Creation  he  omits  to  mention  in 
connection  with  the  creation  of  a  great  world  of  plant- 
life  the  marine  animalcula^  which  also  lived  at  the  time. 
As  if  he  were  obliged  to  furnish  a  minute  catalogue  of 
all  the  organisms;  or  as  if  I  were  saying  what  is  untrue 
when  I  write,  "In  the  time  of  Tacitus  great  forests  of 
pine  and  beech  covered  the  greater  part  of  Germany," 
because  I  omit  to  mention  the  snails  on  the  tree-trunks 
and  the  tadpoles  in  the  puddles.  Professor  Quenstedt, 
although  no  Christian,  says  admiringly  of  the  Biblical 
account,  ''Moses  was  a  great  geologist,  wherever  he 
may  have  obtained  his  knowledge,"  and  ''The  venerable 
Moses  who  makes  the  plants  appear  first  has  not  yet 
been  proved  in  fault,  for  there  are  marine  plants  in  the 
very  lowest  deposits."  As  to  the  creation  of  the  sun 
on  the  fourth  day  (the  Bible  uses,  by  the  way,  not  the 
word  ''bara,"  created,  when  speaking  of  the  sun  and 
moon;  but  "asah/'  prepared),  he  exclaims:  "How  true! 
for  the  tiny  earth  must  have  taken  form  long  before  the 
gigantic  sun."  (Die  Schopfung,  pages  8  and  27.) 
Whether  he  is  correct  in  his  interpretation  of  the  matter 
is  a  subject  we  can  not  go  into  here;  but  at  any  rate 
his  words  show  that  one  may  be  a  great  and  learned 
geologist  and  student  of  nature  without  considering  it, 
as  so  many  smaller  minds  do,  their  duty  as  scientists 
to  shrug  their  shoulders  contemptuously  at  the  Bible 
story  of  the  Creation. 

Once  more  fiery  forces  broke  forth  from  the  deep, 
enveloping  the  earth  in  night  and  darkness;  new  moun- 
tains were  upheaved,  the  depths  sank;  till  at  length  all 

IX 


i62  Science  and  Christianity 

was  still  and  light  appeared  again.  "And  God  said, 
Let  the  waters  bring  forth  abundantly  the  moving  crea- 
ture that  hath  life,  and  fowl  that  may  fly  above  the 
earth !"  And  to  this  day  the  waters  bring  forth  in  such 
abundance  that  it  almost  seems  as  if  there  were  grounds 
for  fear  that  the  life  of  the  ocean  may  become  excessive. 
At  this  time  came  into  being  the  great  sea-monsters, 
the  millions  of  saurians  or  lizards  which  are  found  as 
fossils  in  the  Jurassic  strata. 

And  when,  after  another  long  night  of  dreadful  dis- 
turbances, the  majestic  word  of  Creation  once  more 
resounded,  all  kinds  of  quadrupeds  and  the  present  trees 
made  their  appearance;  and  after  these — this  time  with- 
out a  night  intervening,  another  geological  truth — man, 
created  in  the  image  of  God. 

Criticism  is  powerless  to  overthrow  this  cosmogony. 
He  who  denies  that,  in  agreement  with  this  Word,  first 
the  deep,  the  ocean,  covered  the  earth,  and  darkness 
was  upon  the  face  of  the  waters;  that  then  the  first 
continents  and  mountains  rose  from  the  depths,  fol- 
lowed by  the  appearance  of  a  colossal  vegetation  and 
millions  of  marine  animals,  later  by  a  world  of  quadru- 
peds, and,  last  of  all,  by  man,  denies  the  Bible  and  geology. 

Man  was  made  to  live  in  the  midst  of  this  divine 
creation,  rule  over  it  with  divine  power,  and  raise  it 
to  God.  ''Of  every  tree  of  the  garden  thou  shalt  [not 
mayest]  eat."  Is  it,  or  is  it  not,  true,  then,  that  man 
is  the  lord  of  creation?  Is  not  the  fear  and  dread  of 
him  upon  every  beast  of  the  earth  and  every  fowl  of 
the  air?  But  is  it  not  true,  too,  that  he  feels  himself 
to  be  a  fallen  creature,  and  is  afraid  because  he  is  naked? 

And  now  the  Bible  goes  on  to  present  to  us  hu- 


Christians  and  Science  163 

manity  in  the  closest  connection  with  nature.  Be- 
cause man  fell,  the  ground  was  cursed  for  his  sake; 
and  yet  from  it  he  must  derive  his  nourishment  until 
the  day  when  he  once  more  returns  to  the  earth,  of 
which  he  was  made. 

When  the  waters  above  the  firmament  and  the  wa- 
ters below,  separated  one  from  the  other  by  God's  wis- 
dom, had  once  more  flowed  together  by  reason  of  men's 
sins,  drowning  mankind,  God  cursed  the  tower  and  the 
city,  and  caused  the  instruments  of  his  will  and  his 
spirit — Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob — to  live  in  the  free 
air  of  nature,  worshiping  him,  and  growing  in  spirit  on 
the  mountain,  in  the  oak-grove,  and  under  the  palm- 
tree  by  the  fountain.  Oriental  nature — monotonous, 
but  grand  in  its  monotony — formed  the  background 
to  their  spiritual  life.  Moses,  the  greatest  of  the  proph- 
ets, the  special  friend  of  God,  after  his  studies  at  the 
court  of  Pharaoh  were  ended,  was  sent  to  Mount 
Horeb,  where  he  spent  forty  years  amid  surroundings 
grand  in  the  extreme :  sea,  desert,  and  mountain.  Here 
he  remained,  strengthening  himself  in  spirit,  and  re- 
turning to  a  natural  state  of  mind  preparatory  to  God's 
laying  upon  him  his  great  mission.  In  this  same  wilder- 
ness of  Sinai  he  educated  the  people  whom  he  was  to 
lead  into  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey. 

Great  is  the  view  of  nature  taken  by  the  law  uttered 
on  Sinai;  in  fact,  that  law  rests  upon  nature  as  its  foun- 
dation. Israel  is  not  to  be  a  manufacturing  or  a  com- 
mercial nation,  not  a  race  of  hunters  or  fishermen,  not  a 
nomadic  tribe,  but,  in  the  truest  sense,  a  people  of  nature. 
They  are  to  live  in  and  with  nature,  by  God's  blessings 
given  in  nature  and  her  fruits;  they  are  to  celebrate 


164  Science  and  Christianity 

their  festivals  in  harmony  with  nature;  they  are  to  offer 
to  God  the  firstfruits  of  a  nature  created  and  sanctified 
by  him;  nature  is  to  have  her  Sabbaths  and  years  of 
rest  and  jubilee;  they  are  to  deal  with  her  justly  and 
considerately  throughout — and  as  a  reward  for  their 
obedience  God  promises  his  choicest  gifts:  corn,  oil, 
and  wine  and  fertilizing  rain.  Here  we  have  the  ideal 
of  a  nation — beautiful  because  healthful,  healthful  be- 
cause natural,  and  natural  because  divine. 

The  reverent  carrying-out  of  this  relation  of  man 
to  nature  in  the  Jewish  traditions  has  a  beneficial  and 
elevating  influence.  Beautiful  is  that  reverence  for  the 
"shadow  of  Jehovah,"  as  they  call  creation;  beautiful 
the  recognition  of  the  two  principles  underlying  every- 
thing in  nature,  the  clean  and  the  unclean,  the  fear 
of  marring  the  divine  "Zurali"  (form)  in  any  creature, 
or  defacing  it  by  force,  or  artificial  breeding,  or  min- 
gling in  any  way;  beautiful  the  belief  that  every  such 
disturbance  of  the  earthly  nature  is  an  obscuring  of 
that  which  corresponds  to  it  in  the  higher  nature,  and 
that  it  causes  grief  to  the  angels  because  in  that  way 
their  power  to  work  in  nature  for  the  honor  of  God 
and  the  good  of  mankind  is  weakened. 

On  this  natural  basis  the  law  builds  up  the  divine 
and  human  right  which  lies  hidden  in  nature;  for  nature 
and  law  are  one.  First,  it  affirms  that  the  creature, 
like  the  creation,  stands  before  the  Creator,  and  must 
walk  in  his  ways.  Theocracy  is  the  natural  form  of 
government;  for,  if  God  is  the  Creator  and  Preserver 
of  the  universe,  he  is  also  its  King;  and  to  him  are  due 
highest  honor  and  perpetual  worship,  and  his  service 
is  the  object  and  the  happiness  of  existence  to  his  crea- 


Christians  and  Science  165 

ture.  Wherever  he  may  be,  by  day  or  by  night,  at  home 
and  abroad,  the  Israelite  is  in  the  sight  of  Jehovah,  the 
holy  and  jealous  God,  who  does  not  hold  the  sinner 
innocent.  Of  that  he  is  reminded  every  moment  of 
his  life  by  the  terrible  law,  with  its  inexorable  sentence, 
"That  soul  shall  be  cut  ofif  from  among  his  people." 
The  highest  dignity  to  which  man  can  attain  is  the  serv- 
ice of  God. 

The  seventh  part  of  his  earthly  life  belongs  to  God. 
The  plow,  the  sickle,  and  the  wine-press,  the  servant 
and  the  maid,  the  ox  and  the  ass,  are  to  rest  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  Woe  to  the  man  who  even  gathers  sticks; 
he  shall  die.  There  is  a  pause  in  all  human  work  and 
dealings  between  man  and  man;  the  creature  stands  in- 
active before  the  Creator.  How  pregnant  with 
meaning ! 

The  service  of  the  tabernacle  is  deeply  symbolical. 
Outside  in  the  desert  of  the  world  stands  the  multitude. 
The  chosen  people  enter  through  fire  and  water,  be- 
tween the  brazen  laver,  which  washes  away  uncleanness, 
and  Ariel,  the  lion  of  God,  who  consumes  the  sacrifice, 
into  the  sanctuary,  where  God  is  revealed  in  his  triune 
nature,  which,  as  we  see  from  the  Cabala,  was  well 
understood  by  the  Israelites.  The  Father  and  Pre- 
server of  all  flesh  gives  daily  twelve  loaves  to  the  twelve 
tribes;  the  Son,  the  "Maschiah,"  acts  as  Mediator,  of- 
fering to  the  Father  the  prayers  and  incense  of  the 
people;  and  the  Holy  Spirit  shines  everlastingly  in 
seven-fold  light.  And  within,  in  the  Holy  of  Holies, 
is  enthroned,  between  the  cherubim,  the  God  whom 
no  man  can  see  and  live,  to  whom,  once  in  the  year, 
the   high  priest,   after  purification,   offers   the   golden 


i66  Science  and  Christianity 

vessel  full  of  blood,  which  is  the  life  of  every  living 
soul.  What  beauty  there  is  in  this  type  of  the  heav- 
enly Temple! 

After  the  law  has  thus  ordered  the  service  of  God, 
it  promulgates  the  great  natural  law  between  man  and 
man.  In  the  first  place,  it  impresses  on  man  the  sacred- 
ness  of  life,  the  horror  of  blood-guiltiness,  and  the  only 
true  principle  of  justice:  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  a  life  for  a  life.  Slave-dealing,  then  the 
custom,  is  punished  with  death.  "He  that  stealeth 
a  man  and  selleth  him  .  .  .  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death."  Then  it  inculcates  the  sacredness  of  the  family 
and  of  marriage;  the  power  of  the  father,  the  authority 
of  the  mother;  he  who  smites  or  curses  father  or  mother 
shall  surely  be  put  to  death.  No  punishment  is  ad- 
judged for  parricide;  such  a  crime  is  inconceivable 
under  the  Mosaic  law.  It  proclaims  the  solidarity  of 
the  family,  of  the  city,  of  the  tribe,  and,  finally,  of 
the  whole  nation.  Each  for  all,  and  all  for  each,  one 
in  curse  as  in  blessing.  Property — landed  property,  that 
is — is  counted  sacred.  The  punishment  for  theft,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  comparatively  slight;  for  money  and 
goods  are  not  sacred.  Then  follow  admirable  ordi- 
nances founded  upon  natural  principles.  The  priest  is 
without  possessions.  His  portion  is  Jehovah.  Judg- 
ment is  given  in  public  and  gratuitously  by  the  elders, 
the  old  men,  with  appeal,  in  difficult  cases,  to  the  priests, 
who,  in  their  turn,  may  inquire  of  the  Urim  and  Thum- 
mim.  Cities  of  refuge  are  appointed,  etc.  The  functions 
of  such  a  state,  entirely  in  harmony  with  nature,  form- 
ing a  compact  and  exclusive  whole,  were  carried  on 
with  ease  and  at  very  little  cost.     Prisons  and  houses 


Christians  and  Science  167 

of  correction  had  no  place  in  it,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
rack  and  other  instruments  of  torture  used  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  If  one  man  damage  another's  property,  he 
is  to  become  his  servant,  but  not  for  longer  than  seven 
years.  He  is  to  receive  good  for  evil;  he  is  to  be  made, 
by  useful  work,  an  honest  and  useful  member  of  so- 
ciety; and  if,  on  the  expiry  of  his  term  of  service,  he 
elects  to  stay  with  his  master,  he  is  to  be  received  into 
the  family.  We  put  a  thief  in  prison  at  great  expense 
to  the  State,  and  to  his  own  detriment,  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  him. 

There  is  a  place,  too,  in  this  law  for  the  poetry 
and  joy  and  beauty  of  life.  Splendid  and  obligatory 
festivals,  founded  upon  the  cycle  of  nature,  serve  as 
a  bond  of  union  to  the  people.  A  sincere  pity  and  con- 
sideration for  the  feeble,  the  stranger,  the  widow,  and 
the  orphan,  is  enjoined  as  a  duty.  Cattle,  the  tree,  and 
the  ground  are  to  have  their  rights;  all  avarice  and 
usury  is  forbidden;  freedom  from  military  service  pro- 
vided for  in  certain  cases;  the  man  who  is  to  receive 
a  pledge  must  wait  outside  till  it  is  brought  to  him. 
But  severely  as  Jehovah  punishes  sin  and  wrong,  he 
will  not  have  a  nation  of  sour-faced  killjoys.  "Thou 
shalt  rejoice  and  be  glad  with  thy  manservant  and  thy 
maidservant  and  the  stranger,  and  eat  and  drink  of 
all  wherewith  thy  God  hath  blessed  thee."  This  people 
was  troubled  by  no  problem  of  material  or  social  exist- 
ence. In  peace  or  in  war,  in  politics  or  national  econ- 
omy, for  the  State  or  for  the  individual,  the  only  ques- 
tion was  that  of  obedience  or  disobedience,  "li  ye  obey 
me,  saith  Jehovah,  I  will  command  a  blessing  and  it 
shall  be  upon  you.     If  ye  obey  me  not,  I  will  destroy 


i68  Science  and  Christianity 

you  out  of  your  land."  We  Christians  might  take  a 
lesson  from  Israel,  we,  with  whom  the  problems  of  ex- 
istence, the  continual  anxiety  about  the  things  of  this 
life,  overpowers  and  overshadows  everything:  our 
politics  and  our  treaties,  our  legislation  and  our  daily 
acts,  our  industry  and  our  art.  If  things  go  well  with 
us,  we  desire  God's  blessing  as  something  which,  in 
any  case,  will  do  no  harm,  though  it  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  it  will  alter  the  natural  course  of  events. 
In  order  that  the  people  of  Israel  might  not  fall  into  a 
state  of  anxiety  about  their  daily  bread,  and  come  to 
look  upon  their  system  of  agriculture  as  the  source 
and  ground  of  their  wealth,  the  great  ordinance  of  the 
Sabbath  year  was  instituted.  They  were  not  to  sow 
nor  reap  in  the  seventh  year,  but  to  eat  what  the  Lord 
made  to  grow  without  their  labor.  What  should  we 
who  hold  ourselves  far  above  Israel  say  to  such  a  trial 
of  our  faith  every  seven  years? 

Finally,  God  ordains  the  year  of  Jubilee,  the  grand- 
est of  all  institutions,  brightening  and  beautifying  the 
life  of  the  people,  bringing  release  from  guilt  and  suf- 
fering— a  magnificent  symbol  of  heaven. 

We  have  in  the  law  of  Moses  an  ideal  code,  provid- 
ing for  man's  every  need.  Well  might  Moses  exclaim, 
"What  nation  is  there  so  great  that  hath  statutes  and 
judgments  so  righteous?"  (Deuteronomy  iv,  8);  and 
all  who  hunger  after  righteousness  will  cry  with  David, 
that  wise  ruler  and  statesman,  "The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  perfect,  converting  the  soul."  Deeply  must  they 
sigh  over  our  advanced  modern  notions  of  legislation 
and  justice.  To-day  we  make  laws,  and  to-morrow  we 
repeal  them;  the  judgment  pronounced  by  one  court 


Christians  and  Science  169 

is  reversed  by  another;  and  if  an  attempt  is  made  to 
help  the  right  to  its  right,  and  to  set  bounds  to  in- 
subordination, blasphemy,  and  immorality,  a  general 
outcry  is  raised,  men  feeling  or  believing  themselves 
aimed  at,  their  interests  injured,  their  liberty  restricted. 
''Fiat  justitia,  pereat  mimdusr  cried  the  ancients;  and 
the  sentiment  was  echoed  by  the  iron  Puritans  and 
Huguenots.  We,  however,  would  like  to  have  laws 
which  do  not  hurt  us,  which  neither  set  limits  to  our 
desires,  nor  impose  duties  on  us,  which  are  beneficial 
to  our  own  particular  and  private  interests,  and  which 
conduce  to  the  making  of  money.  All  this,  by  no 
means,  necessarily  implies  right  and  justice.  What  is 
to  become  of  a  nation  which  puts  utility  and  expediency 
in  the  place  of  right? 

It  becomes  more  and  more  apparent  what  harm  has 
been  and  is  done,  even  from  the  pulpit,  by  undervaluing 
and  ignoring  the  Old  Testament.  We  are  losing  the 
sense  of  right  and  justice  because  we  have  come  to 
regard  the  majestic  law  of  the  great  and  terrible  Je- 
hovah, and  its  fulfillment  in  the  history  of  Israel  and 
the  nations,  as  only  valuable  from  an  historical  point 
of  view,  as  things  belonging  to  the  past,  forgetting 
that  the  Word  of  God  endures  forever.  We  are  los- 
ing the  feeling  for  truth  because  we  take  as  poetic 
exaggeration  and  figures  of  speech  what  God  swore 
to  his  people  by  his  prophets.  We  have  likewise  lost 
interest  in  and  understanding  for  the  ways  of  God's 
dealing  with  the  nations  and  for  the  plan  of  history 
devised  by  him;  in  short,  for  the  word  of  prophecy 
in  general  and  for  the  great  and  strengthening  hope  of 
the  glorious  and  literal  fulfillment  of  its  prophecies. 


170  Science  and  Christianity 

Two-thirds  of  the  Divine  Word  He  fallow.  We  do 
not  know  what  to  make  of  it.  We  speak  of  the  terrible 
God  of  vengeance  of  the  Hebrews,  or  ask  in  childish  un- 
reason, "What  does  it  signify  to  my  Christian  faith 
whether  Abraham  ever  lived  or  not?"  We  must  remem- 
ber that  Jesus  said :  "Do  ye  not  therefore  err,  because  ye 
know  not  the  Scriptures?  Have  ye  not  read  .  .  . 
how  God  spake  .  .  .  saying,  I  am  the  God  of 
Abraham  and  the  God  of  Isaac  and  the  God  of  Jacob? 
He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  the  God  of  the  liv- 
ing."    (St.  Mark  xii,  24,  26.) 

Christ  also  stands  or  falls  by  the  Old  Testament. 
If  it  is  a  forgery,  and  Abraham  never  existed,  then 
Jesus,  who  believed  in  Abraham,  and  came  into  the 
world  that  all  might  be  fulfilled  which  is  written  of 
him  in  the  law  of  Moses,  the  prophets,  and  the  Psalms, 
was  a  rabbi  sunk  in  prejudice  and  error,  who  paid  for 
his  unsuccessful  attempt  at  reform  with  his  Hfe.  Then 
there  is  no  Christian  religion. 

How  have  we  become  so  blind  to  the  clear  revela- 
tion of  the  Jehovah-Christ,  the  same  in  the  Old  and 
the  New  Testament,  as  he  appears  in  the  beginning 
of  Genesis,  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  the  Revela- 
tion, the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  whom  "no  man 
hath  seen  at  any  time,"  by  whom  "were  all  things  cre- 
ated that  are  in  heaven  and  that  are  in  earth,  visible 
and  invisible,  .  .  .  who  is  before  all  things,  and  by 
whom  all  things  consist"  (Colossians  i,  15-17);  who 
was  promised  to  Adam  and  to  Abraham;  who  proclaims 
himself  to  Moses  as  "the  Lord,  the  Lord  God,  merciful 
and  gracious,  longsuflfering,  and  abundant  in  goodness 
and  truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands,  forgiving  in- 


Christians  and  Science  171 

iquity  and  transgression  and  sin,  and  that  will  by  no 
means  clear  the  guilty,  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the  fa- 
thers upon  the  children  and  upon  the  children's  chil- 
dren unto  the  third  and  to  the  fourth  generation?" 
(Exodus  xxxiv,  6,  7.)  When  David  rejoices,  "The 
Lord  is  my  Shepherd,  who  forgiveth  all  thine  in- 
iquities, who  healeth  all  thy  diseases,"  he  beholds 
Christ,  of  whom  he  speaks  so  many  prophecies  by  the 
power  of  the  Spirit.  This  same  Jehovah  speaks  to 
St.  John:  "I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  first  and  the 
last,  and  have  the  keys  of  hell  and  death."  It  is  this 
Jehovah  who,  although  during  his  voluntary  humilia- 
tion he  refused  to  exercise  his  prerogative  of  judgment 
and  lovingly  invited  sinners  to  him — nay,  bore  our  sins 
on  the  cross — yet  uttered  his  woes  on  the  Pharisees, 
foretold  to  the  Jews  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and 
pronounced  the  doom  of  Judas.  He  promulgated  a 
new  law,  stricter  and  more  terrible  than  that  of  Sinai: 
"Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them  of  old  time, 
.  .  .  But  I  say  unto  you.  Whosoever  shall  say  to 
his  brother.  Thou  fool,  is  in  danger  of  hell-fire.  Who- 
soever looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  com- 
mitted adultery  already  with  her  in  his  heart."  Who 
can  stand  before  such  words  of  thunder?  And  he  con- 
tinues: "Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers,  how 
can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell?  Wherefore  be- 
hold, I  send  unto  you  prophets  and  wise  men  and 
scribes;  and  some  of  them  ye  shall  kill  and  crucify; 
and  some  of  them  shall  ye  scourge  in  your  synagogues, 
and  persecute  them  from  city  to  city;  that  upon  you 
may  come  all  the  righteous  blood  shed  upon  the  earth, 
from  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel  unto  the  blood  of 


172  Science  and  Christianity 

Zacliarias,  son  of  Barachias,  whom  ye  slew  between 
the  temple  and  the  altar."  (St.  Matthew  xxiii,  33-35.) 
In  this  we  hear  the  Jehovah  of  the  old  covenant,  the 
same  Holy  Spirit  of  justice  who  wrote  the  psalms  of 
vengeance,  and  struck  Ananias  and  Sapphira  dead  for 
what  the  world  counts  a  trifling  act  of  deceit,  w^io 
gave  over  the  sinner  in  Corinth  and  Hymenseus  and 
Alexander  to  Satan.  This  Jehovah-Jesus  is  the  Mes- 
siah and  Avenger  of  whom  Isaiah  (Ixiii,  1-6)  and 
Ezekiel  (xxxix,  17-20)  prophesy,  a  prophecy  the  exact 
fulfillment  of  which  is  beheld  by  St.  John  and  described 
by  him  (Revelation  xix,  11-18)  in  the  very  words  used 
by  the  prophets.  He  sees  Christ  smiting  the  nations  with 
a  rod  of  iron  and  in  a  vesture  dipped  in  blood,  treading 
the  winepress  of  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty;  and  an 
angel  calls  to  all  the  fowls  of  heaven  to  gather  to- 
gether and  eat  the  flesh  of  kings  and  captains,  of  bond 
and  free,  of  small  and  great.  Then  he  will,  with  his 
saints,  rule  the  nations  according  to  the  law  of  Jehovahy 
and  will,  in  the  end,  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,  sit- 
ting on  the  great  white  throne.  "The  Father  judgeth 
no  man,  but  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto  the 
Son."  (John  v,  22.)  After  this  judgment  the  Son  will 
deliver  up  all  things  to  the  Father,  that  God  may  be 
all  I:i  all.  We  have  a  Bible  cast  in  one  mold,  and  a  God 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 

Lacking  the  granite  foundation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, we  build  castles  in  the  air.  He  who  has  never 
felt  crushed  by  the  law  of  Sinai  and  does  not  feel  it 
every  day  of  his  life  talks  idly  of  mercy.  He  knows 
nothing  of  it.  Such  a  one  talks  and  dreams  of  a  Chris- 
tian social  state,  of  a  Church  without  dogmas,  and  of 


Christians  and  Science  173 

a  religion  ot  piire  love,  which  would  embrace  even  the 
enemies  of  God.  With  ^uch  sugared  water  they  think 
to  cure  the  black  death,  and  believe  themselves  in  such 
card-houses  secure  from  the  earthquake. 

The  inflexible  iron  law  of  Sinai  has,  like  all  that 
is  divine,  stood  the  test.  It  made  a  great  nation  of  a 
handful  of  slaves,  degraded  by  four  hundred  years  of 
bondage.  It  made  great  demands  upon  the  individual 
as  well  as  upon  the  nation;  and  it  was  just  that  which 
made  it  strong,  which  gave  it  that  firmness  and  soli- 
darity which  we  are  bound  to  admire  in  it  to  this  day, 
in  spite  of  two  thousand  years  of  humiliation  and  ob- 
loquy. If  only  those  blind  of  heart,  who  see  in  the 
law  of  Jehovah  a  forgery  of  the  time  of  Ezra,  would 
take  counsel  together  and  give  us  such  another  forgery 
which  might  be  to  us  what  the  law  of  Moses  was  to 
the  children  of  Israel!  But  '7a  critique  est  aisee,  Fart 
est  diiUcile.'" 

Let  us  go  a  little  further  into  the  Bible  in  relation 
to  nature.  How  Job,  living  amid  nature,  drew  from 
it  his  wisdom,  beheld  in  it  God  and  his  overruling 
Providence!  When  Job's  trial  is  to  come  to  an  end, 
Jehovah  descends  in  a  whirlwind,  and  challenges  the 
man  of  whom  he  elsewhere  speaks  such  words  of  ap- 
proval to  a  contest,  ''Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man; 
for  I  will  demand  of  thee  and  declare  thou  unto  me!" 
God  does  not  confound  him  by  forcing  upon  him  the 
consciousness  of  his  sins.  He  does  not  comfort  him 
with  the  promise  of  their  forgiveness;  he  does  not  preach 
to  him  mercy  and  repentance;  he  displays  to  him  his 
majesty  and  wisdom  in  nature,  paints  for  him  in  words 
of  thunder,  in  pictures  of  divine  splendor,  such  as  only 


174  Science  and  Christianity 

a  God  can  paint,  the  foundation  of  the  earth  and  the 
ways  and  doings  and  glory  of  all  created  things,  and 
calls  to  him  out  of  the  hurricane:  ''What!  Dost  thou 
still  believe  that  a  God  who  made  all  this  could  make 
a  mistake  in  the  guidance  of  thy  Hfe?"  And  Job  under- 
stands what  this  testimony  of  nature  means. 

David,  the  hero  who  faced  death  in  a  hundred  bat- 
tles against  the  Philistines,  the  Moabites,  the  Edomites, 
who  had  to  have  a  way  hewn  for  him  through  the  ranks 
of  battle  by  his  thirty-three  mighty  men  and  field-mar- 
shals, each  commanding  an  army  corps  of  twenty-five 
thousand  men;  the  terrible  conqueror  who  drowned  the 
insolence  of  his  enemies  in  a  sea  of  blood;  the  wise 
statesman  who  "executed  judgment  and  justice  among 
all  the  people;"  the  king  who  built  palaces  and  the  city 
of  David;  the  wise  administrator  who,  without  oppress- 
ing his  people,  probably  from  tribute  levied  on  other 
nations,  "prepared  a  hundred  thousand  talents  of  gold 
and  a  thousand  thousand  talents  of  silver,  and  of  brass 
and  iron  without  weight,"  for  the  building  of  the  tem- 
ple— this  true  man,  hero,  and  poet  "after  God's  own 
heart"  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  nature.  It  is 
not  in  praise  of  his  feats  of  arms,  or  those  of  others, 
of  the  splendor  of  his  court  and  palaces;  not  of  the 
strength  of  his  fenced  cities  that  he  sings  when  he  in- 
dites a  new  psalm  for  the  chief  musician — his  song  is 
of  the  law  of  Jehovah,  from  which  he  derives  wisdom 
to  govern  the  people,  which  is  his  comfort  and  his  study 
by  day  and  by  night;  his  fortress,  his  rock,  and  his 
strength  is  the  Lord  of  hosts,  on  whom  he  calls  when 
his  enemies  oppress  him,  and  from  whom  he  looks  for 
aid. 


Christians  and  Science  175 

He  is  never  weary  of  admiring  and  considering  the 
great  work  of  Jehovah,  nature.  At  one  time  it  is  the 
starry  heavens,  giving  rise  to  the  question,  ''What  is 
man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?"  At  another  it  is  the 
sea,  "great  and  wide,  wherein  are  things  creeping  in- 
numerable, both  small  and  great  beasts.  There  go  the 
ships:  there  is  that  leviathan  whom  thou  hast  made  to 
play  therein.  These  wait  all  upon  thee,  that  thou  may- 
est  give  them  their  meat  in  due  season."  (Psalm 
civ,  25-27.)  Then  he  takes  up  his  harp  as  he  watches, 
probably  from  the  battlements  of  the  citadel,  a  storm 
coming  up  out  of  the  western  sea,  breaking  against 
Lebanon,  and  dying  away  over  the  wilderness  of 
Cades  (Psalm  xxix),  and  calls  to  the  heroes  and  sons 
who  surround  him  to  praise  with  him  the  voice  of  the 
Lord.  The  divine  psalmist  says  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
"He  hath  given  them  a  law  which  shall  not  be  broken." 
(Psalm  cxlviii,  6.)  And  in  conclusion  he  exhorts  the 
whole  creation  to  join  with  him  in  extolling  Jehovah: 
"O  praise  the  Lord  of  heaven !  Praise  him  in  the  height ! 
Praise  him,  all  ye  angels  of  his !  Praise  him  all  his  host ! 
Praise  him,  sun  and  moon!  Praise  him,  all  ye  stars 
and  light!  Praise  him,  all  ye  heavens,  and  ye  waters 
that  are  above  the  heavens !  Praise  the  Lord  upon 
earth,  ye  dragons  and  all  deeps,  fire  and  hail,  snow  and 
vapor,  wind  and  storm,  fulfilling  his  Word.  Mountains 
and  all  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  beasts  and 
all  cattle,  worms  and  feathered  fowls,  praise  the  name 
of  the  Lord !"    (Psalm  cxlviii.) 

We  find,  too,  in  the  Bible,  a  great  conception  of 
the  weather,  this  something  in  nature  whose  motions 
and  changes  we  do  not  understand  in  spite  of  all  our 


176  Science  and  Christianity 

meteorology;  for  why  is  one  year  cold  and  damp,  the 
next  hot  and  dry,  considering  that  all  the  factors  remain 
the  same? 

The  Bible  also,  in  regard  to  the  weather,  goes  back 
through  all  its  phenomena  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
"God  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust." 
He  covereth  the  heaven  with  clouds;  he  prepareth  rain 
for  the  earth;  he  giveth  snow  like  wool;  he  casteth  forth 
his  ice  like  morsels;  he  causeth  the  vapors  to  ascend 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth;  he  maketh  lightnings  for 
the  rain;  he  bringeth  the  wind  out  of  his  treasuries.  It 
is  the  glorious  God  that  maketh  the  thunder.  He  sets 
his  bow  in  the  cloud.    He  is  Lord  of  the  weather. 

There  are  many  nowadays  who  will  say,  with  a  su- 
perior smile :  ''That  is  the  Hebrew  view  of  the  matter ! 
We  now  know  the  origin  of  thunder  and  the  rainbow." 
It  is  as  if  a  son  were  to  say,  "Now  I  know  that  what  I 
took,  as  a  child,  for  the  voice  of  my  father  is  only  air 
breathed  out  by  the  lungs  and  set  in  vibration  through 
the  vocal  chink;"  or  another,  "We  are  now  aware  that 
the  Sistine  Madonna,  that  unrivaled  masterpiece,  is 
simply  a  mixture  of  various  ochres  with  oil,  smeared 
upon  a  piece  of  canvas  with  brushes  of  sable  hair  or 
hogs'  bristles."  If  God  had  produced  the  thunder  and 
the  rainbow  in  a  supernatural  manner,  the  clever  ones 
of  the  world  would  have  proved  them  to  be  merely  a 
hallucination  of  the  ear  and  an  optical  illusion,  utterly 
useless  as  science;  but,  seeing  he  does  it  by  natural 
means,  they  cry,  "That  is  all  quite  natural  and  easily 
explained;  there  is  nothing  whatever  mysterious  about 
it!"    What  is  God  to  do  in  order  to  satisfy  man? 


Christians  and  Science  177 

Solomon,  who  planted  vineyards,  made  gardens  and 
orchards,  and  planted  trees  in  them  of  all  kinds  of  fruit 
(Ecclesiastes  ii,  5),  who  imported  rare  animals  from 
foreign  countries,  held,  it  would  appear,  lectures  on 
natural  history,  probably  illustrated  by  collections. 
*'He  spake  of  trees  from  the  cedar-tree  that  is  in  Leba- 
non, even  unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the 
wall;  he  spake  also  of  beasts  and  of  fowl,  and  of  creep- 
ing things  and  of  fishes.  And  there  came  of  all  people 
to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon."  (i  Kings  iv,  ^2,  34.) 
The  Song  of  Solomon,  too,  is  full  of  descriptions  of 
nature,  characterized  by  great  Oriental  beauty. 

The  prophets  are  never  weary  of  telling  how  all 
nature  will  flourish  and  rejoice  in  the  day  when  God 
has  mercy  on  his  people,  and  brings  his  promises  to 
them  to  a  glorious  fulfillment.  Let  us  beware  of  the 
intellectual  weakness  which,  as  soon  as  the  truth  be- 
comes too  forcible,  takes  cowardly  refuge  in  a  befog- 
ging of  fact.  A  parable  is  a  parable;  that  of  the  vine- 
yard, for  example,  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  "The 
vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  is  the  house  of  Israel,  and 
the  men  of  Judah  his  pleasant  plant;"  and  a  simile  is 
a  simile,  as  when  it  is  written,  "Who  are  these  that 
fly  as  a  cloud  and  as  the  doves  to  their  window?" 
(Isaiah  Ix,  8.)  But  when  God  threatens  the  people  of 
Israel,  "The  children  of  Israel  shall  abide  many  days 
without  a  king  and  without  a  prince  and  without  a 
sacrifice,  and  without  an  image,  and  without  an  ephod, 
and  without  teraphim"  (Hosea  iii,  4),  that  is  no 
parable  or  simile,  but  a  threat  which  has  been  as  liter- 
ally fulfilled  as  that  against  Tyre :  "I  will  make  her  like 
the  top  of  a  rock;  it  shall  be  a  place  for  the  spreading 
12 


178  Science  and  Christianity 

of  nets  in  the  midst  of  the  sea"  (Ezekiel  xxvi,  4);  or 
that  against  the  great  city  of  Babylon,  that  she,  the 
glory  of  kingdoms,  shall  be  overthrown  by  God,  like 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  that  the  Arab  will  not  pitch  his 
tent  there,  and  that  wild  beasts  shall  prowl  in  her  pal- 
aces. (Isaiah  xiii,  19-22.)  Threats  are  these,  of  which 
even  an  infidel  Frenchman  says,  "They  have  been  ful- 
filled with  grewsome  precision."  In  connection  with 
the  threat  and  curse  on  Israel  it  must  not  be  overlooked 
that  the  consolation  which  immediately  follows  in  the 
book  of  the  prophet  Hosea  is  to  be  taken  just  as  liter- 
ally: ''Afterward  shall  the  children  of  Israel  return,  and 
seek  the  Lord,  their  God,  and  shall  fear  the  Lord  and 
his  goodness  in  the  latter  days."  (Hosea  iii,  5.)  And  the 
blessing  with  which  all  the  prophets  close  their  predic- 
tions will  also  be  fulfilled,  that  oft-reiterated  promise: 
"In  the  last  days  I  will  gather  them  out  of  all  countries 
whither  I  have  driven  them,  and  I  will  bring  them  again 
unto  this  place,  and  I  zvill  cause  them  to  dwell  safely:  and 
they  shall  be  my  people,  and  I  will  be  their  God."  "They 
shall  no  more  say.  The  Lord  liveth  which  brought  up 
the  children  of  Israel  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt;  but.  The 
Lord  liveth  which  brought  up  and  which  led  the  seed 
of  the  house  of  Israel  out  of  the  north  country,  and  from 
all  countries  whither  I  had  driven  them;  and  they  shall 
dwell  in  their  ozvn  land."  (Jer.  xxiii,  7,  8.)  We  ought 
to  ponder  humbly  these  minute,  decided,  and  oft- 
repeated  expressions  of  God's  purpose,  instead  of  turn- 
ing and  twisting  them  so  as  to  make  them  fit  the  present 
condition  of  Christendom,  merely  because  to  our  feeble 
faith  such  an  intervention  of  Jehovah  in  the  history  of 
the  world  appears  strange,  improbable,  nay,  impossible. 


Christians  and  Science  179 

The  present  condition  of  Christianity,  our  Churches, 
did  not  come  within  the  prophets'  ken.  St.  Paul  de- 
clares that  the  mystery  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  the 
mystery  ''that  the  Gentiles  should  be  fellow-heirs  and 
of  the  same  body  and  partakers  of  his  promise  in  Christ 
by  the  Gospel,"  was  not  made  known  to  the  ancient 
world,  but  only  to  him  by  revelation.  (Eph.  iii.)  To 
the  prophets  the  whole  period  of  the  rejection  of  Israel 
is  only  "the  times  of  the  Gentiles."  St.  Paul  says  further 
on  the  subject  (Rom.  xi,  24,  25) :  ''I  would  not,  breth- 
ren, that  ye  should  be  ignorant  of  this  mystery,  .  .  . 
that  blindness  in  part  is  happened  to  Israel  until  the 
fullness  of  the  Gentiles  be  come  in."  Afterwards  "these, 
the  natural  branches,  shall  be  graffed  into  their  own  [not 
our]  olive-tree."  That  the  times  of  the  Gentiles  still 
continue,  and  that  Israel  is  still  rejected,  is  obvious  to 
every  one.  The  fulfillment  of  the  promise,  then,  is  still 
impending;  and  as  surely  as  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple 
were  destroyed  according  to  the  prophecy,  just  as  surely 
will  they  be  built  again  according  to  prophecy;  so  surely 
as  God  has  dispersed  his  people  among  all  nations,  so 
surely  will  he  gather  them  again  out  of  all  countries  as 
he  has  sworn  by  his  prophets.  (See  Ezek.  xxxix,  21-29.) 
Now  the  Bible  teaches  a  connection  between  nature 
and  man  in  general,  and  the  people  of  Israel  in  particular, 
in  such  a  way  that  it  also  suffers  under  his  sins, — a 
groaning  of  Creation  under  the  vanity  of  man.  "How 
long  shall  the  land  mourn  and  the  herbs  of  every  field 
wither,  for  the  wickedness  of  them  that  dwell  therein? 
The  beasts  are  consumed  and  the  birds;  because  they 
said,  He  shall  not  see  our  last  end."  "There  is  no  truth 
nor  mercy  nor  knowledge  of  God  in  the  land.  .  .  . 


i8o  Science  and  Christianity 

Therefore  shall  the  land  mourn,  and  every  one  that 
dwelleth  therein  shall  languish,  with  the  beasts  of  the 
field  and  with  the  fowls  of  heaven;  yea,  the  fishes  of  the 
sea  also  shall  be  taken  away."  (Hosea  iv,  1-3.)  This 
belief,  too,  is  gone  from  us.  In  the  closest  connection 
with  God's  restoration  of  his  people,  whom  he  has  never 
ceased  to  love,  is  foretold  a  glorious  bursting  forth  and 
blossoming  of  nature  in  Palestine  and  the  adjacent 
lands — not,  however,  till  the  terrible  judgments  on  anti- 
christ and  his  nations,  so  frequently  and  plainly  de- 
scribed, have  had  their  fulfillment.  ''In  that  day  shall 
Israel  be  the  third  with  Egypt  and  with  Assyria  even  a 
blessing  in  the  midst  of  the  land."  (Isa.  xix,  24.)  This 
is  to  be  the  oft-promised  and  oft-described  Sabbath  of 
the  earth,  corresponding  to  the  divine  division  of  time 
at  the  Creation.  This  renascence  of  nature  is  described 
for  us  in  various  passages.  "The  wilderness  and  the 
solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for  them;  and  the  desert  shall 
rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  It  shall  blossom  abun- 
dantly and  rejoice  even  with  joy  and  singing."  (Isa. 
XXXV,  I,  2.)  "Instead  of  the  thorn  shall  come  up  the 
fir-tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall  come  up  the 
myrtle-tree,  and  it  shall  be  to  the  Lord  for  a  name." 
(Isa.  Iv,  13.)  "I  will  open  rivers  in  high  places,  and 
fountains  in  the  midst  of  the  valleys:  I  will  make  the 
wilderness  a  pool  of  water,  and  the  dry  land  springs 
of  water.  I  will  plant  in  the  wilderness  the  cedar,  the 
shittah-tree,  and  the  myrtle  and  the  oil-tree;  I  will  set 
in  the  desert  the  fir-tree  and  the  pine,  and  the  box-tree 
together :  that  they  may  see,  and  know,  and  consider  and 
understand  together  that  the  hand  of  the  Lord  hath 
done  this."    (Isa.  xli,  18-20.)    "The  wolf  also  shall  dwell 


Christians  and  Science  i8i 

with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the 
kid;  and  the  calf  and  the  lion  and  the  fatling  together; 
and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them.  And  the  cow  and  the 
bear  shall  feed;  their  young  ones  shall  lie  down  together, 
and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox."  (Isa.  xi,  6,  7.) 
''They  shall  beat  their  swords  into  plowshares,  and  their 
spears  into  pruning-hooks.  Nation  shall  not  lift  up  a 
sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any 
more.  But  they  shall  sit  every  man  under  his  vine  and 
under  his  fig-tree,  and  none  shall  make  them  afraid." 
(Micah  iv,  3,  4.)  With  such  grand  descriptions  of  a 
renovated  nature,  with  such  strong  substantial  conso- 
lation the  Old  Testament,  given  to  the  nature-nation 
of  Israel,  closes.  Instead  of  joyfully  accepting  our  share 
in  these  great  and  blessed  promises,  and  in  the  delight 
of  Jehovah  in  his  creation,  our  poor,  hard,  faithless 
hearts,  for  whom  the  high  is  too  high,  the  great  too 
great,  and  the  true  too  true,  lose  themselves  in  artificial, 
strained,  and  twisted  interpretations  of  these  words  of 
God.  The  times  of  the  Gentiles  are  still  in  progress; 
Israel  is  still  without  king  or  temple  or  sacrifice,  scat- 
tered through  all  countries  and  despised;  Palestine,  the 
land  of  beauty,  still  lies  uncultivated  and  desolate,  an 
abomination  of  desolation!  In  spite  of  these  plain 
and  evident  facts,  the  mighty  utterances  with  which  God 
inspired  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  are  constantly  applied  to 
the  wretched  conditions  of  an  apostate  Christendom, 
and  the  great  redemption  promised  to  his  people  is  sup- 
posed to  be  fulfilled  by  the  annual  conversion  of  a  few 
dozen  Jews!  What  a  mockery  of  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel,  who  is  not  a  man  that  he  should  repent,  and 
who  will  perform  these  things  in  his  own  time!     No 


1 82  Science  and  Christianity 

wonder  that  many  a  youth  stumbles  at  such  a  wretched, 
inadequate  interpretation  of  Scripture,  and  loses  his 
belief. 

It  is  clear  that  in  the  New  Testament,  which  deals 
with  forgiveness  of  sins  and  spiritual  redemption,  nature 
can  take  only  a  secondary  position.  And  yet  here,  as 
everywhere,  it  forms  the  foundation  and  the  back- 
ground. As  at  the  introduction  of  the  law  Moses  stands 
in  the  midst  of  nature  before  the  burning  bush,  and  at 
the  introduction  of  the  prophets  Elijah  by  the  brook 
Cherith,  so  at  the  introduction  of  the  New  Covenant 
the  great  herald  John  the  Baptist,  a  man  of  nature, 
grown  up  in  the  deserts  and  fed  on  locusts  and  wild 
honey,  stands  by  Jordan.  He  does  not  seek  out  the 
rulers,  the  rich  and  the  learned,  the  people  and  the 
soldiers  in  their  dwellings  in  the  city;  but  the  whole  of 
Jerusalem  goes  out  to  him — a  symbolical  going  out 
from  our  false  and  artificial  life  to  hearken  to  the  truth 
of  God  in  the  freedom  of  nature.  And  how  Jesus  him- 
self lived  amid  nature!  He  goes  out  to  the  Jordan, 
retires  for  forty  days  into  the  wilderness,  teaches  on  a 
mountain,  sleeps  in  the  open  air  or  on  the  sea.  We  are 
usually  told  much  about  the  home  of  a  great  man, 
where  it  is  situated,  how  furnished  and  arranged;  Christ 
had  none.  When  he  wished  to  be  alone  he  went  up  into 
a  mountain  and  prayed  there  the  whole  night.  What  a 
sublime  spectacle!  On  the  mountain-top,  in  the  silence 
of  night,  stands  a  God,  and  communes  with  his  God; 
below  him,  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death,  lies  a 
world  which  he  has  come  to  redeem;  above  him  shine 
the  stars  which  he  created,  moving  in  the  paths  which 
he  ordained!    Of  what  spoke  the  Elohim?    Alas!  even 


Christians  and  Science  183 

had  he  heard,  the  creature  would  not  have  understood ! 
We  all  know  how  great  a  part  the  desert,  the  sea,  the 
mountain  played  in  the  life  of  Christ.  His  parables  are 
nearly  all  drawn  from  nature,  not  from  trade  or  com- 
merce, art  or  science;  and  he  commands  us  to  consider 
the  fig-tree,  the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  the  fowls  of  the 
air,  and  to  learn  of  them.  This  nature,  the  sea,  and  the 
winds  which  he  created,  he  now,  in  the  days  of  his  hu- 
miliation, commands.  He  chooses  men  of  nature  for 
his  apostles;  and  nature  which  rejoiced  in  floods  of  light 
at  his  birth,  sorrows  with  her  King  on  the  cross. 

St.  Paul,  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  the  great  organ- 
izer of  the  Christian  Church,  had  not  much  time  to  give 
to  nature.  Yet  from  it  he  draws  his  similes  of  the  seed, 
of  the  wild  and  the  good  olive-tree;  and  utters  the 
mysterious  but  pregnant  words:  "The  earnest  expecta- 
tion of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was  made  subject  to 
vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of  him  who  hath 
subjected  the  same  in  hope,  because  the  creature  itself 
also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption 
into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  For 
we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth 
in  pain  together  until  now."     (Rom.  viii,  19-22.) 

Finally,  in  the  revelation  of  St.  John  we  see  the 
whole  Creation  brought  together  to  judgment.  Till 
now  we  have  listened  to  solos  and  single  voices;  here  is 
heard  the  great  chorus  and  Finale  of  Creation.  Light- 
ning flashes;  the  seven  thunders  utter  their  voices;  great 
hail,  "every  stone  about  the  weight  of  a  talent,"  falls 
from  heaven;  the  winds  are  unloosed;  the  sea  and  the 
waves  roar,  and  the  powers  of  heaven  are  shaken.    The 


184  Science  and  Christianity 

heavy  judgments  of  God  fall  first  upon  man,  but  also 
upon  the  Creation  which  he  has  desecrated.  They  deal 
terrible  destruction,  till  out  of  the  fire  there  rises  a  new 
Creation,  beautiful  and  pure,  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth,  governed  by  the  same  eternal  and  divine  laws. 
Here  blooms  and  flourishes  the  tree  bearing  glorious 
fruits  and  leaves  for  the  healing  of  the  nations;  here 
flows  the  river  clear  as  crystal  in  the  everlasting  light; 
and  here  man  drinks  of  the  cheering  juice  of  the  grape, 
and  sits  at  table  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  white 
garments — as  against  the  nakedness  of  Adam — are  the 
gain  which  we  have  to  show  for  six  thousand  years  of 
sin  and  sorrow;  the  city  with  the  golden  streets,  as 
against  the  houseless  Eden,  signifies  the  addition  of 
divine  art  to  divine  nature! 

We  see,  then,  the  Bible  is  full  of  nature,  begins  with 
the  creation  of  nature,  tells  us  of  the  redemption  of  man 
and  nature,  and  concludes  with  the  renovation  of  divine 
nature.  How  comes  it,  then,  that  so  many  Christians 
look  upon  it  as  hardly  worthy  of  religious  consideration, 
as  merely  a  material  substratum  to  life? 

But  as  everything  in  the  world — Christianity  and 
the  divine  in  m-an  as  well — exists  in  three  stages  of 
being,  positive,  comparative,  and  superlative,  we  see 
that  this  world  is  given  to  us:  first,  that  we  may  live, 
move,  and  have  our  being  in  it  in  a  natural  way,  and  in 
faithful  singleness  of  heart  draw  from  nature  the  knowl- 
edge of  nature's  right,  the  law  by  which  we  are  to  regu- 
late our  existence;  secondly,  that  we  may  study,  search 
out,  and  understand  nature,  learn  from  her  forms,  her 
adaptations  to  purpose,  and  her  laws,  and  thus  grow  in 
the  inner  man;  thirdly,  that  we,  like  Solomon,  SocrateSj 


Christians  and  Science  185 

Haller,  Goethe,  may  know  and  confess  that  we,  with  all 
our  study  and  research,  can  never  penetrate  the  secret 
things  of  nature,  because  she  bears  within  her  as  root 
and  cause  of  the  temporal  appearances  a  part  of  the 
Infinite,  unsearchable,  and  unattainable  to  us  captives 
of  the  Finite.  Our  yearnings  and  our  powerlessness 
should  teach  us  thus  to  express  the  sum  of  the  matter: 
There  exists  a  Higher  Nature,  which  is  the  First  Cause 
of  this  lower  nature;  there  is  something  superior  to 
nature,  which  is  the  root  of  nature.  I  long  to  under- 
stand it;  therefore  I  was  created  that  I  might  under- 
stand it,  and  I  shall  one  day  understand  it. 


If  any  ask,  in  conclusion,  what  becomes  of  the  con- 
tradiction constantly  insisted  on  between  the  Bible  and 
nature,  knowledge  and  faith,  all  I  can  say  is:  I  have 
never  found  any  such  contradiction.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  understand  how  an  astronomical  or  chemical,  a 
botanical  or  anatomical  fact,  a  new  element,  or  a  new 
theorem — and  on  such  facts  and  truths  rests,  in  fact  in 
such  consists,  the  whole  of  science — how  such  can  prove 
to  us  that  there  is  no  God,  or  that  he  can  not  work  mir- 
acles, or  that  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  forgiveness  of 
sins  by  faith. 

But  as  regards  the  Biblical  view  of  Creation,  we 
shall,  in  the  following  chapters,  endeavor  to  prove  that 
it  better  explains  the  universe,  is  more  in  accord  with 
the  facts  of  natural  history,  and  more  satisfying  to  the 
human  mind  than  eternal  matter,  the  cell,  or  the  mighty 
atom.     The  short  account  in  Genesis  of  the  creation 


1 86  Science  and  Christianity 

of  plants,  birds  and  fishes,  quadrupeds  and  men,  after 
their  kind,  undeniably  corresponds,  as  we  have  already 
said,  in  its  broad  features  with  the  geological  periods; 
is,  then,  geologically  correct.  Darwinism,  on  the  con- 
trary, as  we  have  seen  above,  is  at  variance  with  geology. 
The  Biblical  beginning  of  Creation  is,  we  shall  show, 
scientifically  more  tenable  than  the  eternity  of  matter. 
The  Bible  explains  life  and  death,  the  soul  and  con- 
science, morality  and  religion,  all  the  desires  and  fears 
of  humanity  logically,  therefore  scientifically;  not  so 
materialism.  The  Biblical  final  resolution  (not  annihi- 
lation) of  all  elements  through  excessive  heat  (see  St. 
Peter  ii),  and  the  new  Creation  which  will  result  from  it, 
is  a  scientific,  astronomical,  chemical,  absolutely  correct 
conception.  Spectrum  analysis,  the  science  of  the  ele- 
ments revealed  by  fire,  is  a  true  image  of  the  last  judg- 
ment. Fire  reveals  the  fundamental  elements.  ''The 
spirit  of  everything,"  said  Jacob  Boehme  centuries  be- 
fore the  discovery  of  spectrum  analysis,  ''is  revealed  by 
fire,  and  each  emits  a  different  Hght."  Finally,  the 
transmutation  from  man  to  angel  is  exactly  that  at 
which,  according  to  the  materialist,  all  nature  aims  in 
her  evolutions.  And  the  promise,  "Ye  shall  shine  as  the 
sun  in  my  Father's  kingdom,"  is  not  merely  a  poetic 
image,  but  an  exceedingly  plastic  and  scientific  definition 
of  the  highest  life.  Natural  science  recognizes  as  the 
highest  state  the  development  from  within  of  light,  heat, 
electricity,  force  in  all  its  forms,  as  it  is  presented  to  us 
in  the  independent  life  of  the  sun.  We  on  earth  live,  on 
the  contrary,  illuminated  only  from  without,  consoli- 
dated into  hard  bodies,  in  cold  and  death.  That,  too, 
is  a  scientific  fact;  we  saw  in  the  second  chapter  that 


Christians  and  Science  187 

we  are  not  far  removed,  by  scarcely  300^,  from  absolute 
cold,  in  which  even  gas  molecules,  frozen,  cease  to  exist. 
The  outcry  about  the  irreconcilable  contradiction 
between  the  Bible  and  science  would  be  unintelligible 
did  one  not  know  that  men  in  all  ages  have  allowed 
themselves  to  be  taken  in  tow  with  catch  phrases,  in 
which  they  put  implicit  faith  so  long  as  they  are  pleasing 
and  agree  with  the  secret  desires  of  their  hearts.  The 
Bible  and  nature  in  nowise  contradict  each  other, 
though  many  things  in  nature  contradict  what  men  have 
put  into  the  Bible.  Many  naturalists  and  savants  of 
to-day,  however,  put  their  estrangement  from  and 
hatred  of  God  into  their  ideas  of  nature;  and  as  a  vine 
and  deadly  nightshade  growing  side  by  side  produce, 
the  one  good  wine,  the  other  poison,  so  nature  is  given 
to  man  as  ground  from  which  he  can  obtain  good  wine 
or  poison  according  to  the  principle  by  which  he  lives. 
That  is  not  the  fault  of  the  ground.  That  our  century 
is  at  enmity  with  God  is  not  the  fault  of  its  study  of 
nature  and  its  knowledge  of  nature — mark  that;  how 
else  could  so  many  men  of  science  be  good  Christians? 
Nay,  the  reason  lies  in  the  fact  that  because  the  race  is 
hostile  to  God,  its  views  of  nature  are  so  too.  And  so  it 
has  always  been.  It  is  simply  idle  talk  to  say  that  only 
in  this  nineteenth  century  have  men  arrived  by  the  study 
of  nature  at  a  recognition  of  the  futility  of  Christian 
doctrines.  Good  and  evil,  light  and  darkness,  God  and 
the  devil,  anger  and  love,  man  has  put  into  everything 
that  he  has  thought,  invented,  done,  and  written.  Even 
in  David's  time  the  fool  said,  ''There  is  no  God !"  Isaiah 
tells  how  the  Jewish  materialist  cried,  "Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."    (Isaiah  xxii,  13.)    Eigh- 


l88  Science  and  Christianity 

teen  hundred  years  ago  the  world  rejected  and  crucified 
the  Christ  without  advanced  scientific  knowledge  and 
a  higher  criticism.  The  Sadducees,  without  the  light  of 
modern  science,  ridiculed  the  idea  of  a  future  life,  spirit, 
and  resurrection,  like  their  successors  of  to-day;  and  the 
pampered  and  luxurious  Romans  of  the  Empire  perse- 
cuted and  despised  the  Christians  as  socialists  and  an- 
archists do  and  would  do  to-day  if  they  only  had  the 
power. 

If  you  find  an  irreconcilable  contradiction  between 
faith  and  knowledge,  be  sure,  my  friend,  that  it  does 
not  lie  in  the  stars  above,  nor  on  the  wide  earth,  nor 
under  the  earth;  but  in  your  own  heart.  You  are  not 
yet  reconciled  to  God;  you  fear  him,  and  rightly;  you 
defy  him;  and  thi;5  deep  cleft  in  you,  which  reaches  to 
the  root  and  source  of  your  life,  to  the  very  foundation 
of  your  being,  you  believe  you  find  reflected  in  nature; 
for  you  yourself  are  your  conception  of  nature. 

Seek  him,  even  if  you  can  not  yet  believe  that  he  is. 
Cry  to  him,  implore  him,  "O  God,  if  thou  art,  reveal 
thyself  to  me,  who  am  thy  creature,  and  let  me  not 
perish  in  darkness  and  doubt!"  Continue  to  do  so;  a 
man  considers  a  lifetime  not  too  long  tc  earn  a  fortutxe; 
here  is  much  more  than  a  fortune! 

And  let  me  know,  in  this  life  or  In  the  iiexi,  how  you 
have  succeeded. 


CHAPTER    IV 

Science 

1ET  us  look  closely  at  this  great  word.  It  rightly  and 
■^  deservedly  enjoys  great  respect.  With  the  breath 
of  life  God  has  breathed  into  man  an  insatiable  thirst 
for  knowledge,  a  craving  to  know,  which  will  not  be 
denied.  He  stands  on  a  different  footing  from  the  ani- 
mal, in  that  he  desires  to  know  what  he  is,  what  the 
world  is,  what  God  is.  "Man,"  says  Pascal,  "is  miser- 
able because  he  is,  and  great  because  he  knows  it."  The 
ground  of  this  desire  for  knowledge,  however,  lies 
deeper  than  in  the  mere  joy  of  knowing.  The  element 
of  the  soul  is  not  so  much  the  beauty  of  knowing,  as 
the  power  of  being  able.  "I  can,"  is  greater  than  "I 
know."  "The  joy  of  the  soul  hes  in  action."  I  can 
only  act  on  things  and  beings  which  I  know,  whose 
nature  I  in  some  degree  understand;  that  gives  me 
power  to  rule  them  naturally  and  also  by  magic;  for 
this  reason  inferior  natures  put  from  them  the  knowl- 
edge of  things  far  removed  from  their  ken  as  useless, 
asking,  "What  is  the  use  of  it?"  To  know  is  the  first 
condition  of  ability  to  act,  and  the  soul  thirsts  for  knowl- 
edge as  a  means  to  power.  Knowledge  is  power.  Adam 
had  dominion  over  the  animal  creation,  only  after  he  had 
examined  them,  recognized  their  inmost  nature,  and 
named  them  accordingly.  A  dim  relic  of  this  remains 
in  our  desire  to  know  the  real  names  of  things,  in  the 

189 


190  Science  and  Christianity 

constantly  heard  questions :  What  is  that  plant,  that  ani- 
mal called?  What  is  that  man's  name?  Adam  would 
doubtless  have  attained  to  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  and  would  have  been  allowed  to  eat,  not  only  of 
all  the  trees  of  the  garden,  but  also  of  the  tree  of  knowl- 
edge, had  he  first  shown  by  his  obedience  that  he  was 
willing  to  accept  this  knowledge  as  a  gift  from  God  in 
God's  good  time,  instead  of  taking  it  by  violence.  But 
Satan,  who  is  the  enemy  of  truth,  and  therefore  of  all 
true  knowledge,  understood  well  how  to  deprive  man 
of  this  gift  when  he  uttered  the  words,  "Ye  shall  be  as 
gods,  knowing  good  and  evil."  Well  do  we  know  to 
our  cost  that  good  and  evil  are;  but  to  know  what  is 
good  and  what  evil  is  the  daily  decision  and  torment 
of  our  earthly  life!  As  our  happiness  is  only  a  less 
degree  of  misery,  our  health  a  mild  form  of  sickness,  so 
is  our  knowledge  no  real  knowledge,  but  only  a  less 
degree  of  ignorance;  and  ever  since  the  Fall  it  has  been 
the  grief  of  man  that  the  great  Book  of  Creation,  inside 
and  outside,  spirit  and  matter,  remains  sealed  with  seven 
seals. 

What  do  we  really  understand  by  science?  Simply 
the  accumulated  present  knowledge  of  mankind;  though 
what  is  generally  understood  by  it  is  more  the  careful 
investigation  and  sifting  of  facts,  the  clear  and  compre- 
hensive enumeration  of  them,  and  the  logical  statement 
and   presentation   of  the   intellectual   results   obtained. 

This  human  science,  as  we  know  only  too  well,  is 
an  edifice  composed  of  light  and  darkness,  of  truth  and 
error,  of  humble  research  and  arrogant  dogmatism,  of 
daring  hypothesis  and  clearly-demonstrated  theories,  of 
millions  of  facts  and  billions  of  thoughts,  of  the  inborn 


Science  191 

and  the  acquired,  of  yes  and  no,  of  dreams  of  the  past 
and  the  future,  of  unbending  prose  and  high-flown 
poesy;  an  edifice  continually  being  built  up,  now  slowly, 
now  quickly,  and  in  constant  need  of  repair,  ever  grow- 
ing, yet  never  completed;  to  whose  construction  has 
gone  much  sweat  of  brow  and  burning  of  midnight 
oil,  much  ambition  and  aspiration  after  fame,  much 
earnest  labor,  and  bold  and  resolute  thought.  "The 
experimental  sciences,"  says  Humboldt,  "are  never  com- 
plete; the  number  of  sensible  perceptions  is  inexhaust- 
ible; no  generation  of  men  will  ever  be  able  to  boast 
of  having  witnessed  the  totality  of  phenomena." 

Science  is  none  other  than  the  sum  total  of  human 
knowledge,  and  as  such  worthy  of  honor.  How  great 
we  can  not  say;  very  great  if  we  reckon  all  the  thoughts, 
ideas,  feelings  of  the  millions  who  have  lived;  not  very 
great  if  we  extract  only  what  is  fact.  If  we  consider 
what  a  number  of  impressions  of  the  world  and  men, 
plants  and  animals,  tools  and  instruments  and  their  ap- 
plication, speech  and  logic,  a  child  of  ten  has  gained,  we 
may  question  whether  the  savant  in  years  of  study  has 
gained  proportionately  more.  We  arrive  at  the  like 
result  by  another  way.  If  we  take  into  consideration 
that  there  have  been  men  like  Aristotle,  Goethe,  Hum- 
boldt, and  others  who  succeeded  in  the  space  of  fifty 
years,  of  which  the  half  was  sacrificed  to  the  needs  of 
nature,  in  gaining  an  astounding  general  acquaintance 
with  all  human  knowledge,  we  are  amazed,  on  the  one 
hand,  at  the  number  of  ideas  which  a  human  being  can 
master  in  a  few  years  with  the  help  of  not  quite  three 
pounds  of  brain,  yet  still  more  at  the  circumscribed  na- 
ture of  our  total  knowledge. 


192  Science  and  Christianity 

Does  not  this  hardly-earned  knowledge  deserve  our 
esteem?  Has  not  science  rendered  invaluable  and  in- 
numerable services  to  man?  Is  it  not  material,  nay, 
indispensable  to  existence,  if  man  is  to  be  anything 
better  than  the  savage,  the  Patagonian  who  sets  all  his 
endeavors  on  catching  a  few  fish,  which  he  devours 
partially  cooked  to  support  his  miserable  life?  Most 
certainly  we  honor  and  revere  science  in  so  far  as  it 
means  knowledge.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  ridicule  or 
undervalue  a  thirst  for  knowledge,  my  brother,  or  the 
zeal  and  eagerness  with  which  you  search  for  stones  to 
add  to  the  great  and  incomplete  pile  of  human  knowl- 
edge. I,  too,  would  fain  know  what  I  am,  what  my 
neighbors  are;  what  Creation  is;  what  is  good  and  what 
is  evil,  the  great  Riddle  which  only  God  in  the  Heaven 
of  heavens,  in  unapproachable  Light,  wholly  knows.  But 
I  see,  too,  how  others  greater  than  I  have  sorrowfully 
confessed,  like  Socrates,  that  they  only  knew  they  knew 
nothing.  Like  Solomon,  "I  said,  I  will  be  wise;  but  it 
was  far  from  me.  That  which  is  far  off  and  exceeding 
deep,  who  can  find  it  out?"    Or  as  Faust  exclaims: 

**  I  've  studied,  now,  Philosophy, 
And  Jurisprudence,  Medicine, 
And  even,  alas!  Theology, 

From  end  to  end  with  labor  keen. 
And  here,  poor  fool!  with  all  my  lore, 
I  stand  no  wiser  than  before, 
And  see  that  nothing  can  be  known — , 
That  knowledge  cuts  me  to  the  bone." 

He  who  knows  not  this  sorrow  of  heart,  who  has  not 
become  "poor  in  spirit,"  may  be  a  learned  man,  but 
he  is  not  yet  a  wise  one! 


Science  193 

We  can  not  here  go  into  nor  discuss  the  achieve- 
ments of  science;  that  would  require  many  thick  vol- 
umes. Neither  do  we  propose  to  utter  a  panegyric  on 
science,  its  progress  in  some  fields,  its  retrogression  in 
others,  its  usefulness  to  mankind,  and  its  lofty  task. 
That  is  done  every  day,  in  writing  and  by  word  of  mouth, 
by  hundreds  qualified  and  unqualified  to  speak,  by  ear- 
nest students,  and  by  those  to  whom  their  own  glorifi- 
cation is  the  chief  concern.  Just  for  the  reason  that  at 
the  present  day  men  are  inclined  to  exalt  science  unduly, 
it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  subject  to  a  little  criticism 
this  goddess  who  criticises  God  and  the  world,  and  to 
inquire  briefly  what  means  of  knowledge  are  at  her  dis- 
posal; further,  what  bounds  are  set  that  she  can  not 
pass;  and,  lastly,  what  are  her  faults.  If  any  think,  from 
these  remarks,  that  we  do  not  rate  science  suf^ciently 
high,  the  mistake  may  be  on  their  side,  who  ascribe  to 
her  a  power,  a  dominion,  an  infallibility,  which  she  does 
not  possess,  and  which  the  greatest  scientists  do  not 
claim  for  her. 

Many  take  for  granted  nowadays  that  of  necessity 
"where  science  begins,  belief  ends;"  for,  they  say,  sci- 
ence is  founded  upon  clear,  recognized  facts,  provable 
by  every  one,  while  faith  rests  upon  the  emotions  and 
a  more  or  less  vague  sentimentality.  How  far  this  is 
true  of  the  Christian  faith  we  will  consider  elsewhere; 
but  as  regards  the  foundations  of  science,  consideration 
will  show  that  she,  too,  is  based  on  axioms,  on  articles 
of  faith,  on  assumptions  which  can  neither  be  proved  nor 
comprehended,  which  never  completely  explain  the  facts. 

This  is  the  case  even  with  mathematics,  which  is 
rightly  held  to  be  infallible  in  its  deductions  and  con- 
13 


194  Science  and  Christianity 

elusions,  which  men  like  Plato  regarded  as  the  only 
science.  It  is  true  it  pursues  its  way  with  absolute  de- 
cision and  a  compelling  logic;  the  chain  of  its  conclu- 
sions can  not  be  broken,  and  he  who  has  said  A  in 
geometry  and  algebra,  trigonometry  and  integral  calcu- 
lus, must  say  B;  but  the  first  link  of  the  chain  hangs  in 
the  air,  and  I  am  at  liberty  to  say  A  or  not  as  I  please, 
for  the  w^hole  structure  is  based  upon  axioms.  Not  the 
cleverest  mathematician  can  give  me  an  idea  of  unity 
and  number  if  I  have  not  got  it  in  me,  and  no  one  can 
prove  to  me  that  at  which  old  Socrates  wondered,  that 
one  and  one  make  two,  or  that  the  part  is  less  than  the 
whole,  or  that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest  way  from 
one  point  to  another,  or  that  if  A  and  B  =  C,  then 
A  =B.  Thus  mathematics  itself  requires  that  we  should 
believe  without  further  proof  in  order  to  deduce  from 
this  belief  other  conclusive  facts. 

It  is  the  same  w^ith  the  sciences  which  treat  of  matter 
and  its  properties,  with  physics  and  chemistry.  Science 
can  not  tell  us  what  matter  is.  "The  essence  of  matter," 
says  Kekule,  "withdraw^s  itself  from  any  direct  study." 
Chemistry  sets  up,  as  we  have  seen,  the  dogma  of  the 
atom — which  has  incomprehensible  and  contradictory 
qualities — in  explanation  of  the  chemical  combinations 
of  the  elements  which  go  to  form  the  universe.  For  the 
adequate  explanation  of  phenomena  it  ought  to  possess 
all  the  properties  of  bodies;  how  should  they  otherwise 
have  come  by  them?  For  the  proper  explanation  of 
chemical  combinations  which  only  take  place  in  certain 
proportions,  it  ought  to  be  indivisible;  a  quality  which, 
thought  of  as  in  connection  with  matter,  is  simply  un- 
imaginable.   Dr.  Meyer,  of  Geneva,  says  in  his  work  on 


Science  195 

force  and  matter :  *' As  no  amount  of  thinking  can  prove 
to  us  that  matter  consists  of  separate  molecules  (or 
atoms)  of  infinite  minuteness,  what  leads  us  to  believe 
it?  That  all  chemical  and  physical  phenomena  of  matter 
can  only  be  explained  by  laying  this  assumption  as  a 
foundation,  even  although  nothing  further  is  gained 
than  the  summing  up  into  one  incomprehensible  so- 
called  idea  of  a  great  number  of  hitherto  incomprehen- 
sible things  which  are  comprised  in  that  idea." 

Physics  treats  of  forces;  but  what  man  of  science 
can  tell  us  what  force  is?  Let  us  hear  what  Dubois- 
Reymond  has  to  say  on  the  subject:  ''In  face  of  the 
enigma  of  the  nature  of  force  and  matter,  and  how  they 
are  capable  of  thought,  the  student  of  nature  must  once 
for  all  make  up  his  mind  to  the  distasteful  motto, 
Ignorabimus" — "We  shall  never  know  how  matter 
thinks!"  (Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturerkennens, 
page  34.)  Elsewhere  he  makes  the  startling  statement 
that  ''there  exists  probably  neither  force  nor  matter,  but 
that  they  are  merely  abstractions." 

Similarly  all  astronomy  is  based  on  the  theory  of 
gravitation.  Of  this  force,  Newton  himself,  its  discov- 
erer, says  that  though  bodies  certainly  appear  to  attract 
one  another,  he  neither  knows  nor  understands  how  such 
a  thing  is  possible,  and  probably  there  is  no  astronomer 
who  would  not  assent  to  his  words. 

In  order  to  explain  the  force  of  gravitation  and  the 
diffusion  of  light  and  heat  throughout  the  universe, 
modern  astronomy  has  put  forth  the  hypothesis  of  a 
universal  ether  which,  in  addition  to  other  remarkable 
properties,  has  that  of  being  six  hundred  billion  times 
lighter    than    air;    therefore    to    us    quite    immaterial. 


196  Science  and  Christianity 

Nevertheless  the  pressure  exercised  by  this  ether  is  said 
to  counteract  gravitation.  We  have  nothing  to  urge 
against  the  hypothesis,  though  it  does  not  appear  clear 
how,  in  face  of  it,  the  moons  of  Mars  can  revolve  more 
rapidly  than  their  planet;  an  hypothesis,  however,  it  re- 
mains !  If  we  succeed  with  its  help  in  better  explaining 
the  phenomena  and  construction  of  the  universe,  it  will 
gradually  become  a  dogma;  it  never  can  be  actually 
proved,  for  how  can  we  grasp  a  substance  so  intangible, 
so  imponderable? 

Botany  and  zoology,  biology  and  physiology,  treat 
of  organisms,  which  are  distinguished  from  the  inorganic 
world  around  by  having  life.  Of  this  fact  of  life.  Pro- 
fessor Seubert,  of  Tubingen,  says :  ''Chemistry  has  pro- 
duced thousands  of  organic  substances,  it  is  true,  but 
not  one  bearing  in  it  the  breath  of  life;  the  life-force  is 
still  a  mystery  to  us." 

Dr.  Karl  Miiller  says  of  our  whole  knowledge: 
^'Every  philosophy  starts,  as  Herder  says,  from  a  postu- 
late; that  2x2^4  we  know;  but  nobody  can  say  why 
it  is  so." 

Science,  therefore,  the  entire  knowledge  of  mankind 
and  the  individual  man,  is  found  to  rest,  when  tested 
calmly  and  impartially,  on  unprovable  truths,  on  axioms 
which  God  has  put  into  our  souls.  If  they  were  not 
there  already,  we  could  never  put  them  there.  Our 
knowledge  is,  after  all,  only  deduction,  and  instead  of 
the  grand-sounding  words  which  in  reality  tell  of  great 
ignorance,  ''He  who  knows  does  not  believe,"  every 
truly  wise  man  will  agree  to  the  pithy  words  of  Geibel, 
"The  end  of  philosophy  is  to  know  that  we  must  be- 
lieve." 


Science  197 

If  we  ask  with  what  means  and  tools  Science  works, 
what  instruments  she  has  at  command  to  fathom  the 
world,  nature,  man,  the  answer  is  very  simple:  The  five 
senses.  Whatever  ingenuity  man  may  display  in  the 
invention  of  improved  apparatus  for  the  observation, 
measuring,  and  controlling  of  nature's  manifestations, 
and  in  having  these  clever  inventions  regulated  by  others 
still  more  ingenious;  and  however  he  may  set  up  instru- 
ments which,  like  self-registering  barometers,  ther- 
mometers, hydrometers,  hygrometers,  etc.,  keep  and 
account  day  and  night  of  their  own  doings,  and  them- 
selves note  exactly  all  that  has  taken  place,  yet  he  can 
only  perceive  all  that  those  instruments  have  to  tell  by 
means  of  his  senses.  Of  what  use  are  photography,  the 
microscope,  and  the  telescope  to  the  blind? 

But  are  not  these  impressions  of  the  senses,  as  we 
have  often  been  taught,  only  subjective  representations, 
impressions  received  by  the  brain  as  sound,  light,  heat, 
of  an  activity  of  matter  which  is  in  reality  something 
quite  different?  In  that  case  they  would  lack  absolute 
truth,  and  the  whole  world  of  ideas  built  upon  these 
impressions  of  the  senses  as  to  ourselves  and  the  uni- 
verse in  general,  nay,  of  God  also,  would  have  only  a 
relative  and  by  no  means  eternal  value.  Nihil  in  intellectu 
quod  non  fuerit  in  sensu!  Only  through  the  gate  of  the 
senses  can  knowledge  enter  the  mind !  Let  us  imagine 
a  child  of  average  intellect  entirely  deprived  of  its  senses; 
blind,  deaf,  destitute  of  taste,  touch,  and  smell;  how 
could  it,  even  in  the  course  of  years,  attain  to  a  single 
idea  of  the  world  and  of  God?  Without  the  senses,  then, 
there  can  be  no  ideas.  But  if  the  former  are  only  sub- 
jective, the  latter  must  be  so  too,  and  we  have  with  this 


198  Science  and  Christianity 

arrived  at  the  philosophy  which  recognizes  the  outside 
world  as  only  what  we  make  it. 

This  notion  is  contradicted  by  facts.  Some  of  the 
lower  animals  show  a  development  of  certain  senses 
which  far  exceeds  ours.  The  condor  swoops  down  upon 
a  small  body  from  heights  where  he  was  to  us  invisible; 
certain  moths  fly  for  miles,  over  Lake  Constance  for 
example,  attracted  by  the  smell  of  certain  flowers;  some 
insects  possess  an  exceedingly  fine  sense  of  hearing,  and 
what  the  scent  of  a  bloodhound  is,  is  very  well  known. 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  the  indefatigable  observer  of  ants, 
has  proved  that  these  insects,  and  also  the  little  water- 
fleas,  daphnia,  can  see  the  ultra-violet  rays  of  light  which 
are  not  perceptible  to  our  eyes — they  see  more  colors 
than  men,  and  different  ones !  According  to  the  above- 
mentioned  idea,  the  most  highly-organized  beings  ought 
to  have  the  best  developed  senses,  or  vice  versa,  the 
animals  with  such  fine  and  highly-developed  organs  of 
sense  ought  to  have  a  wider,  finer,  greater  conception 
of  God  and  the  world.  But  if  we,  on  the  contrary,  per- 
ceive absolute  facts  by  means  of  the  senses,  then  it  is 
very  easy  to  understand  that  to  the  higher  intellect  of 
man  a  much  smaller  measure  of  sense-impressions  is 
needed  for  the  gain  of  a  much  greater  amount  of  intel- 
lectual capital.  It  is  certain  that  these  sense-impressions 
are  in  all  men  the  same,  and  that  one  man  does  not,  as 
has  been  supposed,  see  red  what  another  sees  blue,  for 
the  like  emotions  and  states  of  mind  are  called  forth  by 
these  impressions,  by  colors  and  sounds.  Not  only  men, 
and  especially  madmen,  see  red  as  a  vivid,  bright,  glar- 
ing, exciting  color;  but  also  animals  of  the  most  varied 
kind,  the  bull,  the  turkey,  the  crocodile,  quadruped,  bird. 


Science  199 

and  amphibious  creature.  To  all  men  pale  blue  is  mild 
and  gentle,  and  black,  gloomy;  and  similarly  all  people 
feel  the  different  effect  of  a  melody  in  a  major  and  in  a 
minor  key. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  we  must  take  for  granted 
that  sound,  light,  heat,  etc.,  are  actual  and  absolute 
manifestations  of  matter  which  lie  outside  us,  and  are 
independent  of  our  perception  of  them.  That  is  how 
the  Word  of  God  regards  them.  When  a  well-known 
naturalist  writes,  "The  Mosaic  expression,  'Let  there 
be  Hght!'  is  physiologically  false;  light  was  not  till  the 
first  red  eye-point  of  an  infusorium  distinguished  for  the 
first  time  between  light  and  darkness,"  we  can  only 
marvel  at  the  careless  way  in  which  such  men  read  the 
Bible.  For  it  is  written :  *'And  God  said,  Let  there  be 
light;  and  there  was  Hght.  And  God  sazv  the  light  that 
it  was  good."  Here  we  have  a  theosophical  view  which 
is  as  far  above  that  of  the  naturalist  as  the  eye  of  God 
above  the  red  eye-point  of  the  infusorium.  In  the  Eter- 
nal God  are  the  senses,  and  ours  are  but  a  feeble  image 
of  his. 

On  the  other  hand,  these  same  senses  prove  to  us 
how  imperfect  they  are,  and  how  small  a  portion  of  the 
world  around  us  they  enable  us  to  perceive.  We  live 
like  an  impoverished  prince  in  an  attic  of  a  splendid 
palace,  and  do  not  even  know  all  its  halls,  galleries,  and 
corridors.  The  energy  of  the  invisible  emission  in  the 
spectrum  is  y.y  times  greater  than  that  of  the  visible 
portion;  in  other  words,  we  do  not  see  the  strongest 
colors,  can  form  no  conception  of  them;  in  fact,  we  see 
only  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  colors  at  all.  We 
can  discern  with  our  eyes  changes  in  the  photographic 


200  Science  and  Christianity 

plate  which  went  on  In  what  we  call  darkness;  we  see 
tiny  stars  which  human  eye  never  beheld  reveal  them- 
selves upon  it  in  the  form  of  black  dots.  In  the  same 
way  our  ears  hear,  very  imperfectly,  only  eleven  octaves, 
according  to  Helmholtz,  or  still  less,  for  many  people 
can  not  hear  the  shrill  whistle  of  the  bat;  while  physics 
teaches  us  that  there  must  be  thousands  of  octaves.  We 
then  see,  hear,  taste,  and  smell  only  a  very  small  part 
of  Creation;  we  are  blind  and  deaf  to  many  of  its  mani- 
festations— which  is  true,  also,  of  our  soul's  life. 

We  do  not  know  whether  space  has  four  dimensions 
or  many  dimensions;  similarly  we  do  not  know  whether 
there  may  not  be  senses  innumerable;  is  not  God  in- 
finite and  his  Creation  too?  At  any  rate  the  five  senses 
we  have  teach  us  that  others  exist  even  on  earth.  For 
instance,  to  return  to  the  animal  world,  there  is  the  case 
of  bats  blind  from  excess  of  light  which,  according  to 
Spallanzani,  fly  about  in  a  room  across  which  wires  with 
bells  attached  have  been  stretched,  at  tremendous  speed 
for  hours  together  without  once  coming  into  collision 
with  the  wires;  again,  a  turtle  which  had  been  caught 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  branded  with  the  ship's  mark 
was  thrown  overboard  as  ill  in  the  English  Channel, 
and  was  fished  up  again  in  the  Pacific  three  years  later. 
How  did  the  creature  find  its  way  those  thousands  of 
miles  through  the  dark  depths  of  the  ocean  and  round 
Cape  Horn?  Similarly  birds  of  passage  with  wonder- 
ful ''instinct,"  as  we  meaninglessly  call  it,  seek  again 
their  last  year's  abode  amid  the  clay  huts  of  the  fellaheen 
and  the  temples  of  Egypt,  in  the  Soudan  or  in  Tunis, 
to  return  as  unerringly  next  spring  to  the  cottage  or 
the  village  church  in  Germany,  to  the  neighborhood  of 


Science  201 

London  or  Moscow,  although  so  many  hundreds  of 
rivers  and  villages  and  hills  look  exactly  alike.  Pigeons 
taken  in  a  basket  from  Belgium  to  Spain,  and  there  set 
at  liberty  after  five  years,  were  back  in  Brussels  within  a 
few  hours.  A  dog,  too,  has  been  known  to  follow  the 
track  of  his  master  after  the  lapse  of  three  months  from 
Russia  to  France,  over  rivers  and  mountains,  without 
being  led  astray  on  any  other  trail.  The  sense  of  smell 
has  nothing  to  do  with  it !  In  the  case  of  such  facts  we 
must  assume  the  existence  of  other  senses,  especially 
in  the  lowest  animals.  Certain  eyeless  worms  {lumhricus) 
shun  the  light  altogether,  and  a  kind  of  blind  mollusks 
(pholas)  close  their  tubes  if  the  slightest  cloud  veils  the 
sun.  A  patella,  that  tiny  mollusk  the  limpet,  goes  out  in 
search  of  food,  and  returns  to  the  same  smooth,  flat 
piece  of  rock.  How  is  it  possible  for  a  morsel  of  jelly, 
without  any  organs  of  sense  whatever,  to  remember  the 
way,  recognize  it,  and  take  it?  Still  more  mysterious 
is  the  case  of  the  infusoria,  which  consist  merely  of  a 
sac  filled  with  fluid,  and  yet  flee  from  their  foes,  pursue 
their  prey,  and  eat  only  certain  kinds — all  this  without  a 
vestige  of  visible  organs.  Here  we  are  at  our  wit's  end ! 
Physics,  too,  teaches  us  that  there  must  be  other 
senses.  There  are  various  forms  and  kinds  of  heat  (see 
Tyndall,  On  Heat),  modulations  and  shades  of  it  in  fact. 
We,  however,  can  only  feel  one  kind  of  heat,  distinguish 
only  between  warm  and  warmer;  are,  therefore,  in  re- 
gard to  heat  like  a  man  who  is  color-blind  to  light;  he 
sees  the  world  only  light  and  dark.  If  we  had  a  sense 
of  heat  as  fully  developed  as  our  sense  of  color,  what  a 
number  of  impressions  and  delights  we  should  gain; 
we  should  have  a  heat-art,  as  we  now  possess  a  color- 


202  Science  and  Christianity 

art!  The  sense  of  electricity  is  also  wanting  in  us;  we 
are  not  even  able  to  distinguish  between  positive  and 
negative  electricity.  A  new  world  would  be  open  to  us 
and  to  science  if  God  were  to  bestow  on  us  this  sense; 
as,  contrariwise,  if  he  had  withheld  from  us  the  sense 
of  taste  and  smell,  no  man  would  ever  have  suspected 
the  existence  of  different  odors  and  flavors.  So  many 
senses,  so  much  knowledge. 

Thus  the  universe  is  hedged  round  for  us  by  the 
number  and  the  acuteness  of  our  senses;  they  set  up  the 
boundaries  within  which  our  science  must  be  carried  on. 
May  we  not  ask  whether  it  is  not  to  new  and  fuller  senses 
that  the  words  refer,  "Eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him?'* 


With  regard  to  the  limitation  of  science  by  our  sensi- 
ble preceptions,  the  celebrated  thinker  and  scientist, 
Dubois-Reymond,  held  a  lecture  on  the  subject,  which 
he  followed  up  by  a  second  on  the  seven  world-riddles. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  only  says  what  many  have  long 
thought  and  known,  as  he  himself  confesses;  neverthe- 
less the  disputes  which  it  occasioned,  the  bitter  re- 
proaches which  were  heaped  on  him  by  the  materialists, 
and  the  exaggerated  rejoicing  of  the  orthodox  as  if  this 
one  man's  utterance  had  made  a  new  creation,  show  how 
well-timed  his  words  were;  and  for  this  reason  we  quote 
here  his  concluding  sentences. 

In  the  first  place,  Dubois-Reymond  makes  the  state- 
ment already  quoted,  that  "to  understand  nature  is  to 


Science  203 

refer  the  changes  in  the  material  world  to  the  motion  of 
atoms  or  to  the  resolution  of  natural  processes  into  the 
mechanism  of  atoms."  Then  he  cites  Kant's  words, 
that  *'in  every  special  nature-dogma  there  is  only  just 
so  much  science  as  it  contains  mathematics."  Even 
Plato  of  old  said,  ''God  carries  on  geometry  every- 
where." Dubois-Reymond  then  quotes  from  the  as- 
tronomer, Laplace :  ''A  mind  which  for  a  given  moment 
was  cognizant  of  all  the  forces  which  animate  nature 
and  the  mutual  relation  of  the  beings  of  which  it  con- 
sists, and  who  understood  how  to  analyze  these  data, 
would  with  the  same  formula  grasp  the  motions  of  the 
largest  celestial  body  and  of  the  lightest  atom;  nothing 
would  be  uncertain  to  him,  and  future  as  well  as  past 
would  be  present  to  his  sight;"  and  then  he  inquires  what 
limits  to  knowledge,  what  insoluble  problems  would 
present  themselves  to  such  a  mind,  conceived  as  a  man 
of  the  highest  intelligence,  and  finds  several.  "These 
problems,"  he  says,  "may  be  taken  as  seven  in  all. 
Those  which  appear  to  me  absolutely  unconquerable 
I  will  call  transcendental. 

"The  first  riddle  is  the  nature  of  matter  and  force. 
As  one  limit  to  a  perfect  understanding  of  nature  it  is 
in  itself  transcendental.  All  the  progress  of  science  has 
led  to  nothing  on  this  subject;  all  further  advance  will 
be  equally  powerless.  For  even  the  mind  of  Laplace,  so 
much  greater  than  ours,  would  be  no  wiser  on  this 
point,  and  we  recognize  with  despair  that  here  we  have 
reached  the  limit  of  our  ability. 

"The  second  difficulty  is  the  origin  of  motion.  We 
see  motion  arise  and  cease.  If  we  try  to  imagine  an 
original  state  we  come  to  this,  that  we  think  of  matter 


204  Science  and  Christianity 

as  infinite  ages  ago  at  rest  and  equally  distributed 
throughout  infinite  space.  As  a  supernatural  impulse 
can  have  no  place  in  our  scheme  of  things,  any  sufficient 
ground  for  the  first  movement  is  wanting.  Or  if  we 
think  of  matter  as  in  motion  from  all  eternity,  then  we 
renounce  at  the  outset  all  hope  of  clearness  on  this  point. 

''The  third  puzzle  is  the  origin  of  life.  I  see  no 
reason  to  consider  this  difficulty  transcendental.  If  mat- 
ter has  once  begun  to  move,  worlds  may  be  formed;  and 
under  favorable  conditions  that  peculiar  state  of  dynamic 
equilibrium  of  matter  which  we  call  life  may  have  come 
into  being.  If,  however,  we  admit  a  supernatural  act, 
then  one  day  of  creation  is  all  that  is  necessary.     (?) 

"The  fourth  puzzle  is  afforded  by  the  apparently 
intentional  fitness  of  the  arrangements  of  nature.  Dar- 
win showed  in  natural  selection  a  way  of  circumventing 
them;  though  in  holding  to  this  doctrine  we  have  al- 
ways the  feeling  of  the  drowning  man  keeping  himself 
above  water  by  clinging  to  a  plank.  This  fourth  diffi- 
culty is  so  far  not  transcendental,  however  timidly  an 
earnest  and  conscientious  mind  may  face  it. 

"The  fifth  puzzle,  again,  is  absolutely  transcendental. 
This  enigma  is  consciousness.  What  imaginable  con- 
nection can  subsist  between  certain  movements  of  cer- 
tain atoms  in  my  brain  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  the  to  me  original  undeniable  facts:  I  feel  pain, 
pleasure;  I  am  warm,  cold;  I  taste  sweetness,  smell  the 
scent  of  roses,  hear  the  sound  of  the  organ,  see  red;  and 
the  certainty  directly  resulting  from  them:  therefore  I 
exist?  It  is  absolutely  and  everlastingly  incomprehen- 
sible that  it  should  be  otherwise  than  a  matter  of  perfect 
indifference  to  a  number  of  atoms  of  carbon,  hydrogen, 


Science  205 

oxygen,  nitrogen,  etc.,  how  they  lie  and  move,  how  they 
lay  and  moved,  how  they  will  lie  and  move.  It  is  im- 
possible to  see  how  consciousness  can  arise  from  their 
mutual  interaction.  If  their  position  and  mode  of  mo- 
tion were  not  a  matter  of  indifference  to  them,  one 
would  be  compelled  to  think  of  them  as,  like  monads, 
endowed  separately  with  consciousness.  However,  that 
would  neither  explain  consciousness  in  general,  nor  con- 
tribute in  the  slightest  to  the  explanation  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  individual. 

*'It  is  not  with  full  conviction  that  I  set  up,  as  sixth 
difficulty,  reasoning  thought,  and  the  origin  of  language 
intimately  connected  with  it."  (This  is  sufficiently 
treated  of  under  consciousness.) 

*ln  close  connection  with  it  stands  the  seventh,  and 
last,  problem  of  the  series.  This  is  the  question  of  free 
will."  After  a  minute  consideration  of  this  question, 
in  which  he  quotes  Leibnitz  and  other  writers,  Dubois- 
Reymond  comes  to  this  conclusion :  ''As  to  the  seventh 
puzzle,  it  comes  to  this:  If  one  makes  up  one's  mind 
to  deny  the  existence  of  free  will  and  to  explain  the  sub- 
jective feeling  of  freedom  as  an  illusion,  the  difficulty 
disappears;  in  the  other  case,  we  must  pronounce  it 
transcendental."  Professor  Dubois-Reymond  now 
sums  up  in  these  words :  "Our  knowledge  of  nature  is, 
then,  circumscribed  by  the  bounds  which  are  set  to  it 
by  the  inability,  on  the  one  side,  to  understand  matter 
and  force;  on  the  other,  to  deduce  mental  processes 
from  material  conditions.  Within  these  limits  the  man 
of  science  rules  as  lord  and  master,  dismembers  and 
builds  up.  Beyond  these  limits  he  is,  and  always  will 
be,  powerless."    It  is  of  these  great  world-riddles  that 


2o6  Science  and  Christianity 

he  pronounced  the  word  I gnorahimiis ! — We  shall  never 
know ! 

We  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  this  eminent  scien- 
tist for  speaking  out  openly  and  frankly  what  many 
of  less  mark  try  anxiously  to  gloss  over  by  proclaiming 
to  the  world  that  man's  capability  of  understanding 
is  unlimited,  that  to  science  nothing  is  impossible. 

Nevertheless  Professor  Dubois-Reymond  might,  we 
think,  have  gone  still  deeper  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
We  believe  that,  deeper  than  free  will  and  conscious- 
ness, matter  and  force,  lie  the  fundamental  conditions 
of  existence,  which  must  first  be  discovered  that  the 
edifice  of  true  knowledge  may  be  built  up  on  a  sure 
basis  and  granite  foundations.  By  these  we  mean  time, 
space,  and  number.  In  time  everything  exists,  without 
space  no  phenomenon  is  imaginable,  and  all  thought 
is  based  upon  the  fact  that  i=i  and  1+1=2. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  a  philosophy,  which  we 
touched  on  in  speaking  of  the  senses — to  which,  per- 
haps, Dubois-Reymond  does  homage — which  teaches 
that  time,  space,  and  number  only  exist  in  our  imagi- 
nation; that  they  have  their  origin  in  our  thought  of 
them;  that  the  universe,  in  fact,  only  acquires  reality 
through  our  idea  of  a  universe.  It  is  extraordinary 
that  the  idea  should  be  placed  on  a  level  with  the  reality. 
According  to  this  doctrine,  then,  what  the  periwinkle 
on  its  rock  thinks  the  ocean  to  be,  that  the  ocean  is;  or 
the  ant's  notion  of  a  mountain  is  the  mountain.  O  the 
folly  of  a  man's  thinking  that  his  conception  of  God 
is  God !  What  the  outcome  of  this  opinion  is,  is  shown 
by  Schopenhauer,  one  of  its  adherents.  After  saying, 
"Time  is  a  contrivance  of  our  brain  to  lend  an  appear- 


Science  207 

ance  of  reality  to  the  absolute  nothingness  of  the  exist- 
ence of  things  and  ourselves,"  (!)  he  goes  on:  "The 
geological  processes  which  preceded  all  life  upon  the 
earth  existed  in  no  sort  of  consciousness — not  in  their 
own,  for  they  possessed  none;  not  in  any  other,  for 
there  was  no  other.  Consequently  they  had  no  object- 
ive existence — i.  e.,  they  did  not  exist  at  all."  And 
further:  "The  cosmogony  of  Laplace  and  the  earliest 
geological  phenomena  up  to  the  appearance  of  organic 
nature  are  a  description  of  phenomena  which,  as  suchy 
never  existed;  for  they  are  phenomena  of  time,  place, 
and  cause,  which,  as  such,  can  only  exist  in  the  con- 
ception of  a  brain,  and  consequently,  in  the  absence  of 
such,  are  impossible,  and  never  existed.^'  The  whole  of 
the  ancient  mountains,  then,  with  their  granite  and 
gneiss  and  basaltic  giants,  are  the  result  of  processes 
which  never  took  place!  It  is  not  necessary  to  refute 
such  statements. 

The  materialists  who,  like  Schopenhauer,  allow  time 
only  a  subjective  existence  in  my  thoughts,  neverthe- 
less contradict  themselves  by  teaching  the  eternity  of 
matter.  Whether  the  spirit  can  exist  without  time  is 
a  question  which  admits  of  disputation.  Matter,  how- 
ever, with  its  forms  and  essential  conditions,  without 
which  it  would  not  be  matter,  can  not  be  imagined  apart 
from  time  and  space. 

We  have  already  stated  grounds  for  the  objectivity 
of  our  perceptions  by  the  senses;  and  we  believe  also 
that  space,  time,  and  number  existed  before  us,  and 
are  outside  us.  Let  us  consider  these  three  great  uni- 
ties of  existence  in  an  unscientific  manner. 

Every  one  thinks  he  knows  what  time  is;  but  all  the 


2o8  Science  and  Christianity 

learned  and  the  unlearned  of  the  world  can  not  define 
it.  With  a  power  that  is  irresistible,  this  mysterious, 
invisible  something  carries  us  onward,  whether  we  will 
or  no.  "Time  and  tide  wait  for  no  man."  Whether 
we  are  looking  forward  with  joy  to  our  wedding,  or 
with  shrinking  terror  to  our  death,  the  shoreless  stream 
flows  on  unceasingly,  silently,  bearing  us  on  its  tide 
towards  the  ocean.  The  flood  of  the  past  rises,  has  al- 
ready swallowed  up  our  childhood,  our  youth;  soon  our 
whole  life  will  be  under  water,  and  we  shall  have  van- 
ished, to  be,  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned,  a  thing 
of  the  past.  And  it  is  a  blessing  that  it  relentlessly  car- 
ries away  with  it  our  work,  our  cares,  our  anguish; 
a  blessing  that  ''time  and  the  hour  runs  through  the 
roughest  day."  We  could  not  endure  the  omnipresence 
of  time. 

How  long  is  time  really?  How  long  is  a  second  in 
itself?  No  one  can  say.  We  measure  it  by  our  feel- 
ings, by  our  thoughts.  Sensations  run  through  our 
nerves  to  the  brain  with  the  speed  of  an  express  train 
(Helmholtz);  and  ten  separate  impressions  are  about 
as  many  as  we  can  take  in  in  a  second.  If  we  thought 
with  the  rapidity  of  the  hydrogen  molecule,  earthly  na- 
ture would  appear  to  us  motionless,  dead,  and  un- 
changing. If  beings  exist  who  think  proportionately 
slower,  and  spread  the  experiences  of  five  minutes  over 
a  century,  creation  is  to  them  an  incomprehensible 
whirlwind;  for  they  have  not  time  to  grasp  the  single 
phenomena  before  they  are  gone. 

The  ticking  of  a  clock  is  one  of  the  weirdest,  most 
awful  things.  Hark!  how  your  life  is  running  by  so 
monotonously,  so  incessantly,  and  falling,  drop  by  drop. 


Science  209 

into  the  eternal  nothing !  With  every  tick  a  ''moment'* 
enters  your  life,  a  stranger  from  eternity,  casts  a  glance 
at  you,  and  is  gone  before  you  can  stretch  out  your 
hand  to  grasp  it.  What  will  the  next  bring  to  you? 
Failure  of  the  heart's  action,  perhaps;  and  in  the  one 
after,  you  "are"  no  more,  you  ''were!"  You  are  to 
your  dear  ones  now  only  a  memory;  or,  the  next  mo- 
ment the  bell  rings !  The  postman !  A  telegram !  You 
read  it.  It  tells  of  the  death  of  one  of  your  dearest; 
perhaps  of  ruin,  disgrace,  misfortune,  to  yourself  or 
your  family — for  misfortune  lies  in  wait  for  us — and 
from  that  moment  your  life  can  never  again  be  what 
it  was.  And  ever  nearer  and  nearer  comes  the  last 
moment  of  all:  a  long  or  short  death-struggle;  the  doc- 
tor says,  "It  is  all  over;"  your  family  burst  into  tears, 
and  kiss  the  pale  form  which  but  now  was  you;  but 
you  have  left  forever  the  earth,  where  time  flowed  on 
like  a  river;  you  are  there  where  the  aeons  roll  onward 
in  God,  like  shoreless  and  fathomless  oceans — the  true 
time,  of  which  ours  is  only  an  image  and  an  outflow, 
where  you  will  forget  that  you  were  ever  mortal. 
Everything  in  this  world  happens  in  time.  Men  are 
born  and  die  "in  the  fullness  of  time."  "And  it  came 
to  pass,"  say  the  Scriptures.  "Earth's  insufficiency 
here  grows  to  event."  (Goethe.)  Every  moment  that 
passes  belongs  to  the  past — irreclaimable,  unattainable, 
whether  great,  important,  blissful,  sorrowful,  or  tedious. 
And  between  these  two  abysses,  these  two  mysterious 
eternities,  we  are  poised,  as  the  Arab  says,  on  the  edge 
of  a  razor-blade.  Something  is  ever  falling  from  us 
into  the  past:  our  deeds  and  our  guilt,  the  terrible 
culpa,  which  grows,  in  the  invisible  world,  to  giant  pro- 
14 


2IO  Science  and  Christianity 

portions,  overshadowing  the  present  and  the  future. 
As  the  penny  put  out  to  interest  two  thousand  years 
ago  would  now  amount  to  an  enormous  sum,  one  single 
murder  committed  by  Attila  destroyed  millions  who 
might  have  existed  to-day;  and  one  lie  suffices  to  make 
millions  unhappy  and  sinful  now.  The  battle  of  Ac- 
tium  was  lost  through  the  panic  of  a  woman,  and  the 
course  of  the  world's  history  was  turned  into  other 
channels.  We  fifteen  hundred  million  human  beings 
suffer  from  the  single  fact  that  Adam  once  put  forth 
his  hand,  took,  and  ate.  But  good  deeds,  too,  bear 
fruit  forever.  As  a  grain  of  wheat  in  time  produces  an 
immense  quantity  of  bread,  a  word  of  truth  spoken 
ages  ago  still  brings  forth  a  thousand-fold  to  all  time. 
We  and  our  actions  are  eternal.  "Ye  are  gods."  What 
is  the  past?  What  is  the  future?  The  traveler  sees 
stretching  before  him  the  way  he  is  to  travel.  We,  how- 
ever, walk  backwards,  our  faces  towards  the  way  we 
have  just  accomplished,  not  knowing  whether  we  may 
not,  the  next  moment,  stumble  and  fall  over  the  preci- 
pice. Are  there  worlds  where  the  beings  look  for- 
ward, where  the  past  is  as  mysterious  and  unknown, 
as  dreadful  as  the  future  is  to  us,  and  where  the  future 
lies  as  open  as  to  us  the  past?  It  was  so  with  the  proph- 
ets, w^ith  Balaam,  w^hen  he  exclaimed,  ''I  behold  him, 
but  not  nigh !" 

Space,  too,  is  a  mystery  to  us.  Is  it  finite?  Yes. 
What  is  there,  then,  where  it  ceases,  and  what  its  boun- 
dary? If  it  is  infinite,  how  can  we  form  any  idea  of 
it?  Is  matter,  too,  infinite?  For  what  is  space  with- 
out matter?  If  we  were  in  space  empty  of  matter,  how 
should  we  be  aware  that  we  were  moving,  whether 


Science  211 

at  a  snairs  pace  or  with  the  rapidity  of  lightning,  over 
a  space  of  a  few  inches  or  several  million  miles;  for 
how  should  we  distinguish  between  "here"  and  "there?" 
What  is  motion?  And  what  is  size?  If  space  is  infinite, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  large  and  small.  The  pyra- 
mids are  very  imposing;  a  model  of  them,  a  foot  high, 
is  a  plaything.  Of  course,  because  we  think  of  size 
in  relation  to  ourselves,  and  measure  with  our  "foot," 
or  with  the  forty-millionth  part  of  the  earth — the  meter. 
But  how  large  are  zve  in  reality?  On  an  asteroid  giants 
as  large  as  Mont  Blanc;  on  the  sun,  small  as  ants;  in 
the  universe,  invisible  particles;  under  a  microscope 
with  a  magnifying  power  which  gives  an  enlargement 
twenty  thousand  times  that  of  the  object,  we  would  be 
nearly  forty  miles  high.  This  conception  does  not 
satisfy  chemistry.  In  her  sight  we  are  solar  systems 
revolving  at  enormous  speed,  nebulae  composed  of  in- 
numerable billions  of  atoms  and  molecules,  endowed 
with  marvelous  and  eternal  energies,  incessantly  draw- 
ing together  and  separating.  Each  atom,  each  mole- 
cule is,  perhaps,  proportionately,  as  far  from  the  next 
as  Jupiter  from  the  earth.  Of  what  size  does  an  atom 
appear  to  an  angel?  Of  what  size  do  we  appear  to  the 
God  of  space,  who  sees  each  one  of  the  innumerable 
atoms  of  which  we  are  composed?  In  any  case,  hu- 
manly speaking,  we  are  immeasurably  great  in  his 
sight.  All  these  and  other  unanswerable  questions  arise 
from  the  most  cursory  consideration  of  space.  And 
yet  without  space  there  would  be  neither  form  nor 
size  nor  motion,  neither  being  nor  existence. 

As  we  do  not  know  what  time,  space,  matter,  and 
force  really  are,  neither  do  we  understand  the  laws  of 


212  Science  and  Christianity 

the  mutual  relation  of  these  great  unities.  We  do  not 
know  the  relation  of  time  to  vital  force.  We  do  not 
understand  why  some  insects  live  only  a  few  hours,  a 
crow  200  years,  the  lion  30,  and  man  80  years,  instead 
of  5,000  or  50,000.  In  this  case,  too,  we  accept  as  a 
matter  of  course  what  we  can  not  explain.  We  do  not 
understand  the  laws  of  space  and  size  of  things  and 
beings.  We  do  not  know  why  the  diatom  is  so  small 
and  the  Sequoia  red-wood  so  gigantic;  why  the  elephant 
requires  so  much  space  for  his  bodily  presence,  and 
man  only  two  and  one-half  cubic  feet.  We  do  not 
understand  the  correlation  of  force  and  matter.  We  do 
not  know  why  the  whale  requires  six  pounds  of  brain 
to  think  with — twice  as  much  as  Shakespeare  and  New- 
ton— and  the  ant,  with  its  much  greater  intelligence, 
only  1/7000  of  a  gram;  nor  do  we  know  why,  as  a  rule, 
bodily  strength  decreases  in  proportion  to  size,  so  that 
flies  are  ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  times  stronger  in  propor- 
tion to  their  bulk  than  the  elephant  and  the  lion,  and 
with  them,  according  to  M.  Plateau's  careful  investiga- 
tions, ''the  strength  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  weight.'* 
No  less  mysterious  is  number,  the  root-form  of 
thought,  the  condition  of  all  being.  That  1=1  and 
2x2=4,  this  exceedingly  simple  and  yet  inexplicable 
fact  is  the  condition  sine  qua  non  of  the  universe,  the 
inexorable  law,  and  the  fatality  of  all  being.  This 
simple-seeming  number,  the  beginnings  of  which  can 
be  mastered  by  a  child,  grows  and  grows  beyond  the 
earth  to  the  farthest  fixed  stars,  and  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  thought.  Let  us  take  an  example.  The  larg- 
est number  that  we  can  write  with  three  figures  is,  in 
the  first  place,  999.     When  we  come  to  the  numbers 


Science 


213 


to  the  9th  power,  we  have  the  number  9^^,  identical, 
as  regards  numerals,  but  far  greater;  the  99th  power  of 
9,  a  number  of  about  90  places,  a  number  so  large 
that  a  globe  with  a  circumference  equal  to  the  earth's 
orbit  would  not  contain  the  like  number  of  grains  of 
sand.  Stupendous,  too,  is  9^^,  the  9th  power  of  9  to 
the  9th  power.  Our  imagination  has  long  ago  left  us 
in  the  lurch.  But  if  we  write  this  number  9(%)  the 
(9  to  the  9th)  power  of  9,  the  mere  addition  of  the 
brackets  causes  the  number  to  explode  to  gigantic  pro- 
portions, divine  and  diabolical,  no  longer  human;  for 
now  these  three  figures  express  a  number  with  three 
hundred  and  seventy  million  places,  which,  in  ordinary- 
printing,  would  reach  from  Berlin  to  the  Adriatic,  for 
which  all  the  languages  of  the  earth  have  not  words 
enough;  of  which,  if  they  denoted  grains  of  sand,  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  in  millions  of  years,  could 
count  only  a  fraction!  And  yet  this  number  exists; 
in  God,  first;  but  also  in  infinite  space  as  size,  in  infinite 
time  as  ason;  and  millions  of  such  would  not  exhaust 
space  and  time.  What  forms  of  life  exist  in  those  un- 
fathomable infinities  of  space !  Where  shall  we  immor- 
tal beings  dwell  through  those  unimaginable  seons? 
Shall  we  be  advancing  ever  towards  God,  far,  far  above 
all  our  present  thoughts  and  ideas?  For  there  is  a 
divine  progress  and  a  divine  evolution  of  the  divine  in 
the  Divine! 

Number,  however — and  that  proves  how  divine  it 
is — is  in  itself  neither  great  nor  small;  in  other  words, 
in  its  smallest  form  it  is  infinitely  great.  Draw,  with 
a  pencil,  ever  so  small  a  circle;  yet  there  lies  within  it 
the  problem  of  the  squaring  of  the  circle,  the  rela- 


214  Science  and  Christianity 

lion  of  the  circumference  to  the  diameter,  a  rela- 
tion which  can  not  be  exhaustively  expressed  by 
all  the  numerals  of  the  world.  Here  are  the  first 
decimals:  3-141592653589799323846264338327950288- 
41971693993751058809749445923078164062,  etc.  The 
number  has  grown  to  infinite  proportions.  Eternity 
will  not  exhaust  it;  for  it  is  beyond  grasp;  and  yet  it 
is  contained  in  every  pin-head  and  grain  of  shot. 

The  very  fact  that  we  can  only  take  in  number 
in  its  simplest  beginnings,  and  that  it  soon  grows  over 
our  head,  proves  that  we  are  in  the  first  stage  of  our 
eternal  development.  May  there  not  exist  beings  who 
can  clearly  grasp  the  above  number  of  three  hundred 
and  seventy  million  places,  and  mentally  reckon  with 
it  as  well  as  we  with  one  of  two  places?  With  regard 
to  time,  space,  and  number,  we  are  likewise  forced  to 
cry.  Ignoramus! 

We  arrive  thus,  not  without  astonishment,  at  the 
conviction  that  science,  though  it  teaches  us  so  much 
that  is  true,  useful,  and  important  concerning  the 
things  of  our  ken,  their  form  and  appearance,  is  power- 
less when  it  comes  to  an  explanation  of  the  nature  of 
these  same  things. 

Our  answer  to  the  gibe  and  reproach  of  the  material- 
ist, that  we  Christians  "love  to  take  refuge  in  dark 
corners  which  Science  has  not  yet  illumined  with  her 
lamp,  there  to  spin  webs  for  the  capture  of  sound  rea- 
son," is:  We  do  not  need  to  take  refuge  anywhere. 
Here  we  stand  on  God's  wide  earth,  and  demand  of 
Science:  What  is  this  space  which  surrounds  us,  and 
this  time  which  bears  us  ever  onward?  She  does  not 
know.     What  is  the  matter  on  which  we  stand,  and  of 


Science  215 

which  we  are,  and  the  forces  which  animate  it?  She 
does  not  know.  What  and  whence  the  hfe  I  see  around 
me,  and  the  soul  which  I  feel  within  me?  She  does 
not  know.  The  dark  corner  "which  Science  has  not 
yet  illumined  with  her  lamp"  is  called  the  universe. 

Once,  when  a  schoolboy,  I  chanced  to  meet  a  man 
pre-eminent  in  the  world  of  science.  I  stopped  him,  and 
begged  him  to  tell  me  why  grass  is  green.  "With 
pleasure,"  he  replied,  affably;  "because  the  cells  are 
filled  with  green  chlorophyll,  which  shines  through  the 
cell-walls."  "Yes,  I  knew  that;  but  why  are  the  chloro- 
phyll granules  green?"  "Because  they  consist  of  a  waxy 
substance  which  possesses  the  property  of  reflecting  the 
green  rays."  "What  is  a  green  ray?"  "A  vibration  of 
the  ether  at  the  rate  of  six  hundred  and  sixty  billion 
times  in  a  second."  "A  green  vibration?  It  gets  more 
and  more  difficult  to  understand.  How  am  I  to  imag- 
ine it?"  "As  you  like,"  he  said,  shrugging  his  shoul- 
ders, and  went  his  way.  And  I  stood  still,  pondering 
his  words :  substance,  property,  green  ray,  vibration, 
ether!     Each  an  abyss  of  thought! 

This  inability  to  find  out  the  nature,  the  essence 
of  things  is  the  inevitable  cause  of  the  insufficiency  and 
incompleteness  of  all  our  scientific  ideas.  To  begin 
with,  there  is  the  utter  impossibility  of  imagining  the 
atom,  invisible  as  it  is  and  ever  will  be.  Then  bodies 
appear  to  exercise  the  power  of  attraction  upon  one 
another  in  agreement  with  Newton's  law  of  gravitation; 
but  the  attraction  is  an  incomplete,  because  unintelli- 
gible, idea.  The  undulatory  theory  of  sound  and  light 
fits  in  well  with  many  facts;  but  it  remains  a  puzzle 
how   thousands   and   thousands   of   sound-waves   in    a 


2i6  Science  and  Christianity 

concert-room  resound  in  and  through  one  another,  with- 
out interfering  with  one  another,  or  being  merged  in 
those  following;  and  it  is  still  more  marvelous  and 
mysterious  that,  in  a  crowd  of  a  thousand  men,  millions 
and  millions  of  ether-waves  paint  in  each  eye  a  picture  of 
the  surrounding  world,  differing,  perspectively,  in  each 
case.  Our  entire  physical  explanation  of  capillarity,  en- 
dosmose,  etc.,  as  taught  in  schools  and  colleges,  is  open 
to  question.  If  we  could  generate  temperatures  of 
10,000°,  an  entirely  new  chemical  science  would  arise, 
says  a  chemist  with  truth.  ''The  science  which  we  have 
designated  as  satisfying  for  the  present  our  need  of  dis- 
cerning the  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  does  not 
do  so  in  reality.  It  is  not  knowledge,  but  only  the 
substitute  for  an  explanation."  (Dubois-Reymond.) 
Nevertheless  this  recognition  of  ignorance  is  an  essen- 
tial part  of  true  science.  The  saying  of  Pascal  holds 
good  here  also:  ''Man  is  ignorant  because  he  is;  but 
he  is  wise  because  he  is  aware  of  it." 


It  remains,  now,  for  us  to  speak  of  the  faults  of 
science;  for,  being  human,  it  has  various  human  fail- 
ings. First,  the  desire  of  impressing  the  lay  mind  by 
the  use  of  strange  and  technical  expressions,  and  an 
involved  style  of  diction.  One  must  often  complain 
of  it,  as  Dubois-Reymond  does  of  modern  philosophy: 
"It  has  lost  the  language  of  common  sense  and  calm 
deliberation.  It  evades  the  questions  which  agitate  the 
simple  seeker  after  truth,  or  contemptuously  ignores 
them    as    uncalled-for    suppositions."      Many    men    of 


Science  217 

science  believe  themselves  called  upon  to  wrap  up  their 
knowledge  and  their  thoughts  in  involved  and  obscure 
language,  avoiding  any  approach  to  clearness  and  defi- 
niteness  of  expression.  To  write  so  that  every  one 
would  at  once  understand  would  be  unscientific,  ama- 
teurish. 

We  are  all  led  away  by  words  and  phrases.  Now  it 
is  the  sparkling,  brilliant,  witty  style,  "the  lie  of  elo- 
quence," over  and  under  which  Petrarch  sighed;  now 
it  is  the  weighty  and  authoritative  expression  of  ap- 
parently sure  and  certain  knowledge;  now  the  simple 
and  artless  style  which  enslaves  us;  and  words — our 
own  words — rule  us  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Man  wrestles 
with  them,  would  fain  make  them  serve  him,  would 
fain  compel  truth  from  them,  and  finds,  when  life  is 
waning,  that  he  has  lost  the  battle. 

The  Frenchman  is  continually  lapsing  into  the 
"phrase  spirituelle,"  and  running  the  risk  "de  dire  des 
riens  avec  esprit.''  The  Italian  unconsciously  tries  to 
produce  an  effect  by  the  use  of  sentimental  superlatives; 
the  Russian  loves  to  take  humanitarian  fads  for  relig- 
ious ideals;  the  German  gapes  in  speechless  admiration 
at  the  scientific  phrase,  and  thinks,  when  he  can  no 
longer  see  the  bottom,  it  must  be  very  deep,  whereas 
it  is  often  only  because  the  water  is  muddy!  That  it 
is  possible  to  be  learned,  and  at  the  same  time  wanting 
in  sense,  you  will  never  get  him  to  believe. 

Schopenhauer  hits  the  nail  on  the  head  in  his  criti- 
cism of  the  style  of  most  scientific  authors :  "The  guid- 
ing principle  ought  to  be  that,  as  a  man  can  only  think 
one  thought  properly  at  a  time,  he  must  not  be  expected 
to  think  two  or  three  at  once.     .     .     .'    The  reason 


2i8  Science  and  Christianity 

why  most  ordinary  minds  prefer  an  involved  style  is 
that  it  costs  the  reader  much  time  and  trouble  to  un- 
derstand what  he  would  otherwise  grasp  instantly;  and 
thus  the  impression  is  created  that  the  writer  possesses 
more  depth  and  a  greater  intellect  than  the  reader." 
And  elsewhere,  "Let  a  man  in  saying  extraordinary 
things  make  use  of  ordinary  words." 

The  highest  ambition  of  others  is  to  be  original, 
witty;  as  the  French  say,  "spirituel."  But  the  pure, 
whole  truth  is  never  so.  Original,  "spirituel,"  signifies 
the  personal,  individual,  therefore  one-sided,  often  para- 
doxical and  hyperbolical  presentation  of  a  fresh  side 
of  the  truth,  for  which  reason  what  is  ''spirituel"  may 
tickle  the  fancy,  but  is  not  of  universal  benefit. 

Christ,  who  was  the  Truth,  who  spoke  for  all  man- 
kind, who  w^as  filled  with  the  Spirit,  never  uttered  a 
word  to  which  that  epithet  could  be  applied.  When  a 
man  like  Hegel  finds  himself  obliged  to  confess  at  the 
close  of  his  career,  ''Of  all  my  pupils,  only  one  under- 
stood me,  and  he  misunderstood  me,"  he  censures  his 
whole  wisdom;  for  true  wisdom  is  before  all  things  in- 
telligible. "Simplicity  is  the  sign  of  truth,"  is  an  old 
Latin  saying. 

It  is  refreshing  to  find  that  great  savants  in  all  na- 
tions speak  in  intelligible  language.  In  Tyndall,  Arago, 
Humboldt,  Helmholtz,  in  Macaulay,  Thiers,  Ranke,  the 
same  greatness  of  mind,  the  same  deep  comprehension 
of  causes  and  effects,  the  same  clearness  and  coherence 
in  the  observation  of  facts  and  in  deduction,  produces 
the  same  beautiful  diction. 

Scientific  phraseology  is,  like  every  other  phrase- 
ology, very  dangerous.     One  can  positively  bring  one's 


Science  219 

self  to  believe  that  there  Is  really  something  in  it.  The 
employment  of  It  is  due  to  a  desire  to  appear  greater 
than  one  is,  to  excessive  self-confidence.  This  is  one 
of  the  failings  of  science.  She  has  always  believed  her 
present  knowledge  to  be  more  or  less  absolute;  she 
has  been  too  much  inclined  to  draw  deductions  from 
what  she  knew  as  to  what  she  did  not  know.  We  know 
how  the  men  of  science  assembled  at  Salamanca  proved 
to  Columbus  by  the  help  of  science  from  Aristotle's 
time  onwards  that  the  earth  was  not  a  globe,  and  that, 
if  it  were  so,  he  might  go  down  on  one  side,  but  never 
up  on  the  other. 

The  science  of  the  eighteenth  century,  too,  lived  in 
proud  consciousness  of  her  infallibility.  How  she 
smiled  when  told  of  stones  falHng  from  the  sky!  The 
Academy  of  Paris,  in  the  year  1800,  declared  the  reports 
presented  to  it  on  the  subject  absolutely  incredible. 
Goethe  relates  how  he  himself,  at  the  time,  ridiculed 
the  idea,  and  now,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  is  making 
a  collection  of  meteoric  stones  with  much  interest. 
The  same  Academy  refused  to  receive  further  commu- 
nications on  the  subject  of  magnetism,  treating  it  as  a 
delusion.  This  same  subject  is  now  scientifically  stud- 
ied and  publicly  lectured  upon  under  the  new  names 
of  hypnotism,  suggestion,  by  Professor  Charcot,  Bern- 
stein, Forel,  and  others.  The  Parisian  astronomer, 
Lalande,  coolly  rejected  the  work  of  Bessel  on  luminous 
satellites  with  the  words,  "We  do  not  believe  in  such 
things;"  and  German  astronomers,  too,  made  merry 
over  Bessel's  discovery.  At  the  present  day  double 
stars  are  among  the  most  absorbing  objects  of  scientific 
research.     Only  fifty  years  ago  science,  and  so  compe- 


220  Science  and  Christianity 

tent  an  authority  on  the  ocean  as  Edward  Eorbes, 
taught  that  at  the  depth  of  300-500  meters  all  life  be- 
came extinct,  vegetable  as  well  as  animal,  neither  be- 
ing able  to  develop,  or  even  exist,  because  of  the  enor- 
mous pressure  and  the  absolute  darkness.  We  know 
now  from  the  researches  of  the  Challenger  that  at 
a  much  greater  depth — as  far,  in  fact,  as  man  has  pene- 
trated— there  exists  a  plenitude  of  delicate  organisms, 
shining  with  a  many-colored,  red  or  green  phosphor- 
escent light  of  their  own;  some  of  them  with  huge  eyes, 
occasionally  on  the  end  of  long  horns.  As  a  rule,  sci- 
ence is  at  fault  when  she  denies.  There  is  "helium" 
on  the  earth,  life  in  the  depths  of  ocean,  stones  in  the 
sky!  For  a  long  time  there  were  disputes  as  to  the 
Fohn,  the  hot  wind  of  Switzerland.  Some  brought  it 
from  the  Sahara,  others  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  until 
at  last  the  simple  Swiss  were  found  to  be  right  in  believ- 
ing it  to  arise  in  Switzerland  itself,  as  the  Norwegian 
Fohn  does  in  Norway. 

Science  long  ridiculed  the  idea  of  the  ground-ice 
found  by  fishermen  and  sailors  as  a  physical  impossi- 
bility, etc.  As  Arago  pithily  observes,  if  we  had  never 
seen  fish,  we  should  prove  scientifically  that  no  living 
thing  could  exist  in  water,  and  especially  in  sea-water, 
containing  chloride  of  sodium  and  iodine;  and,  as 
Flammarion  says,  on  the  other  hand,  every  phil- 
osophic fish  looks  upon  life  out  of  the  water  as 
an  impossibility.  If  we  had  no  knowledge  of  trans- 
parent substances,  we  should  certainly  maintain  that 
hard,  solid  bodies  were  necessarily  opaque.  Till 
quite  recently  no  one  had  any  idea  of  the  fourth 
gas  in  the  air  (argon)  discovered  by  Professor  Ramsay, 


Science  221 

a  discovery  of  which  Dr.  Miiller  writes:  "Who  would 
have  believed  such  a  thing  possible,  considering  how 
often  the  air  has  been  tested  and  examined  by  the  most 
careful  chemists,  with  the  best  instruments?  We  are 
constrained  to  say  with  Hamlet  that  there  are  many 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  undreamed  of  in  our  phi- 
losophy." With  what  scorn  has  chemistry  long  spoken 
of  alchemy!  But  now  several  renowned  chemists — 
Professor  Berthelot,  for  example — admit  that  the  hy- 
pothesis of  an  elemental  substance  on  which  alchemy 
is  based  is  as  acceptable  as  any  other  chemical  theory. 
Till  a  hundred  years  ago  science  knew  nothing  of  a 
natural  force — electricity — which  in  another  hundred 
years  will  play  a  principal  part  on  earth,  unless  by  that 
time  it  has  been  superseded  by  some  new  force  more 
easily  obtainable  from  the  sun's  rays.  If  a  physicist  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century  had  been  told  that  it  was 
possible  to  transmit  a  force  of  several  hundred  horse- 
power a  distance  of  several  hundred  miles  by  means  of 
a  copper  wire,  without  any  movement  of  that  wire,  or 
even  its  becoming  warm,  he  would  have  smiled  sar- 
castically, and  said  that  such  a  thing  was  in  direct  op- 
position to  the  simplest  laws  of  nature.  The  opinions 
of  authorities  on  and  against  the  introduction  of  rail- 
ways at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  now 
only  raise  a  laugh  at  their  absurdity.  Scientists  looked 
upon  Daguerre  as  insane  when  he  declared  he  would 
not  rest  till  he  had  succeeded  in  fixing  the  sun-pic- 
tures. Immediately  before  the  application  of  spectrum 
analysis  to  astronomy,  Dove  disposed  of  the  astronomer 
Zollner  with  the  words,  "We  do  not  know  what  the  stars 
are,  and  we  never  shall  know." 


222  Science  and  Christianity 

In  still  more  recent  times  science  believed  vhat  the 
primal  slime  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  from  which  all 
life  originates,  had  been  discovered  in  the  famous 
Bathybius  Haeckeli;  that  the  primordial  organism  had 
been  found  in  Eozoon  Canadense;  and  that  Professor 
Koch's  tuberculine  had  given  to  the  world  an  infallible 
remedy.  What  has  been  the  fate  of  these  and  similar 
triumphs  of  science?  Too  often  she  strikes  out  a  new 
path,  only  to  find  it  a  blind  alley.  When  Hehnholtz 
published  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  which 
had  been  first  discovered  by  Robert  Mayer,  but  which 
he  had  more  clearly  grasped  and  demonstrated,  ''the 
authorities  on  physics  in  Berlin  treated  the  work  with 
disapprobation,  declaring  it  a  fantastic  speculation  or 
downright  absurdity.  The  editor  of  the  principal  scien- 
tific journal  refused  to  accept  it."  (Memorial  Oration 
on  Hermann  von  Helmholtz,  by  W.  v.  Bezold.)  And 
now,  as  the  above  writer  remarks,  this  discovery  stands 
as  a  proposition  ''the  definiteness  and  comprehensive- 
ness of  which  must  be  designated  as  the  greatest  tri- 
umph of  which  natural  science  can  boast  since  Newton 
discovered  the  law  of  universal  attraction." 

We  have,  thus,  good  and  reasonable  grounds  for 
not  believing  without  evidence  all  that  this  goddess 
named  science  asserts,  and  for  not  rejecting  at  once 
everything  which  she  is  pleased  to  ridicule;  for  present- 
day  science  has  not  grown  any  more  modest.  She,  too, 
in  spite  of  her  boasted  freedom  from  prejudice,  laughs 
at  everything  which  does  not  fit  in  with  her  systems 
and  theories,  at  everything  for  which  she  has  not  yet 
been  able  to  find  an  explanation. 

One  instance  is  the  influence  of  the  moon  and  other 


Science  223 

heavenly  bodies  on  the  vegetable  and  the  animal  world, 
although  this  influence  is  manifest  in  the  case  of  the 
sun,  is  shown  in  the  tides,  and  therefore  by  sound 
reasoning  must  be  held  possible,  though  in  a  slighter 
degree,  of  all  heavenly  bodies,  considering  that  we  know 
next  to  nothing  of  the  electrical  and  other  effluvia  of 
the  universe.  The  lunar  influence  is  evident  in  the  case 
of  many  lunatics;  and  the  fishermen  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean are  well  aware  that  the  sea-urchins  {itrsinees) 
living  in  the  depths  of  the  sea  where  no  moonbeam  ever 
penetrates  are  only  succulent  and  eatable  when  the 
moon  is  waxing;  when  it  is  on  the  wane  they  are  al- 
most dry. 

Science  in  general  treats  homoeopathy  with  con- 
tempt, in  spite  of  the  number  of  facts  which  go  to  prove 
that  a  quantity  which  can  not  be  weighed  nevertheless 
has  an  efifect.  The  thousand  millionth  of  a  cubic  milli- 
meter of  a  dark  aniline  solution  acts  upon  the  optic- 
nerves;  and  less  than  the  billionth  of  a  cubic  millimeter 
of  musk  upon  the  olfactory  and  other  nerves;  in  fact, 
the  following  proposition,  stated  long  ago  by  Laplace 
and  Bertholet,  is  a  sufiflcient  defense  of  homoeopathy: 
"An  atom  or  molecule  which  has  been  set  in  motion  by 
any  force  can  communicate  its  motion  to  any  other 
atom  with  which  it  comes  in  contact."  (Liebig, 
Chemische  Briefe,  page  289.)  And  yet  homoeopaths 
and  allopaths,  anti-vaccinators  and  the  inventors  of  va- 
rious natural  cures,  are  bitterly  antagonistic  to  each 
other,  accusing  one  another  of  gross  ignorance  and 
carelessness  of  life — a  proof  how  far  medical  science  is 
infallible ! 

Science  scorns  prophetic  dreams  and  the  interpre- 


224  Science  and  Christianity 

tation  of  dreams,  and  thinks  to  account  for  them  by- 
reflex  action  of  the  nerves  and  other  meaningless  ex- 
pressions. It  laughs  at  spiritualism  and  its  experiments 
in  materialization,  although  many  worthy  men  (accord- 
ing to  the  Banner  of  Light,  over  ten  millions),  among 
them  doctors,  lawyers,  professors,  who  for  years  have 
carried  on  experiments  in  their  own  families  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  strangers,  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  state- 
ments; we  can  hardly  believe  that  all  these  men  are 
the  victims  of  an  absurd  and  nonsensical  hocus-pocus 
such  as  certain  spiritualists  perform  in  public  for  money. 

The  science  of  to-day  laughs,  too,  at  visions  and 
prophecy,  as  well  as  at  demoniacal  possession,  ghosts, 
magic,  and  divination.  These  are  certainly  things  in 
which  to  believe  openly  is  ''a  disgrace  to  the  present 
century."  What  different  ideas  people  have!  In  my 
opinion  among  the  many  things  of  which  the  century 
ought  to  be  ashamed  should  be  included  the  super- 
ficiaUty  and  over-hastiness  with  which  it  rejects  every- 
thing which  goes  beyond  its  horizon,  stigmatizing  such 
with  virtuous  indignation  as  ''blinded  superstition" — a 
failing  from  which  well-meaning  but  ignorant  Chris- 
tians are  not  free.  We  may  be  sure  a  race  of  men  quite 
color-blind  would  work  themselves  into  a  state  of  moral 
indignation  if  they  were  continually  hearing  people  talk 
of  shades  of  yellow,  purple,  and  blue. 

It  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  expected  of  unprejudiced 
inquiry  that  it  should  not  ridicule  without  due  exami- 
nation phenomena  which  have  been  manifested  in  mill- 
ions of  instances  among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  dur- 
ing thousands  of  3^ears;  phenomena  of  which  serious 
and  even  scientific  men,  like  Kant,  Goethe,  Schopen- 


Science  225 

hauer,  to  mention  only  a  few  moderns,  are  careful  not 
to  speak  slightingly;  and  to  which  it  can  only  oppose 
the  flat  and  stupid  denial :  It  is  impossible,  for  I  do  not 
believe  in  it.  It  suits  them  not  to  believe  in  it;  other- 
wise the  consequences  would  be  too  unpleasant. 

I  said,  to  believe  openly  in  such  things  is  a  disgrace; 
for  as  every  civilization  is  but  a  varnish  or  veneer  cov- 
ering the  natural  wood,  the  fashion  of  to-day  covers 
with  a  triple  coat  of  enlightenment  a  superstition,  even 
among  the  cultivated  class,  hardly  ever  surpassed  in 
grossness.  The  ridiculing  of  such  things  in  broad  day- 
light is  like  the  ill-concealed  cowardice  of  the  boy  who 
whistles  in  the  dark.  Those  who  laugh  at  ghosts  in  a 
brilliantly-lighted  drawing-room  are  horribly  afraid  of 
passing  the  churchyard  at  midnight  on  their  way 
home — whereby  hangs  many  a  tale — and  thus  the  ghosts 
have  their  revenge.  Much  might  be  told  of  the  super- 
stition of  princes  and  kings,  their  consorts  and  their 
courtiers;  of  the  daily  consultation  of  the  cards  by  the 
freethinker,  Gambetta;  of  the  fetish  of  the  aristocratic 
and  enlightened  gamblers  at  Monte  Carlo  and  else- 
where, the  dearly-bought  slipper  of  a  suicide,  a  blood- 
stained banknote,  the  piece  of  rope  with  which  a  man 
has  been  hanged;  of  the  superstition  of  the  atheistical 
Berlin  stockbrokers  who  base  their  speculations  on  the 
color  of  the  horse  of  the  first  mounted  policeman;  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer  printed  backwards,  and  of  the  amu- 
lets which  are  for  sale  in  many  towns;  of  the  philters  and 
charms  which  are  used  by  many  educated  people,  and 
even  by  Christians!  Any  one  who  is  acquainted  with 
the  state  of  things  knows  what  value  to  set  on  the  asser- 
tion that  superstition  vanishes  before  enlightenment! 
15 


226  Science  and  Christianity 

Superstition  is  the  weird  shadow  thrown  on  our 
path  by  the  invisible  wings  of  the  powers  of  darkness, 
"the  spirits  of  the  power  of  the  air,"  the  indestructible 
feeling  of  a  great  and  mysterious  connection  not  to  be 
severed  between  all  existences,  which  binds  us  and  our 
fate  with  invisible  chains  to  the  greatest  and  the  smallest, 
the  nearest  and  the  farthest-off  in  nature;  and  its  eternal 
relation  to  the  two  conflicting  principles  of  being.  And 
because  these  are  truths,  however  confused,  discon- 
nected, and  apparently  senseless  and  absurd  the  indi- 
vidual conception  of  them  may  be,  no  enlightenment 
and  no  amount  of  preaching  against  them  will  have  any 
effect.  Only,  as  Jacob  Boehme  says,  let  us  take  refuge 
in  the  heart  of  God  from  the  storms  of  Satan! 

Let,  however,  in  ten  or  twenty  years'  time  some 
ingenious  mind  investigate  any  one  of  these  phenomena 
scientifically,  give  it  a  Greek  name,  and  introduce  it 
as  ''the  latest  result  of  scientific  research" — as  has  been 
done  with  hypnotism,  which  was  known  to  the  Egyp- 
tian priests  and  practiced  by  them  as  a  remedy  (see 
Plotinus,  Book  IX) — and  it  will  become  the  fashion  to 
believe  in  it,  and  be  interested  in  it,  just  as  it  is  now 
good  form  to  laugh  at  it.  God  have  mercy  on  our 
fickleness  and  instability! 


We  might  refrain  from  entering  here  on  a  discus- 
sion of  the  critical  side  of  science,  as  that  deals  not  with 
nature,  but  with  history.  Yet  it  forms  at  the  present 
day  so  integral  a  part  of  all  the  sciences,  and  extends  its 
operations  to  God  and  nature  to  such  a  degree  that  it 


Science  227 

is  advisable  to  touch  upon  it.  A  certain  amount  of 
criticism,  impartial  and  kept  within  bounds,  may  be  of 
benefit,  although  truth  proves  its  right  to  the  name 
independently  of  all  criticism,  in  that  it  stands  the  test 
and  endures.  But  nowadays  criticism  in  general,  and 
Bible  criticism  in  particular,  has  so  greatly  degenerated 
into  a  one-sided  negation  that  it  is  becoming  ever  more 
needful  to  assume  towards  it  an  attitude  of  skepticism 
and  anti-criticism.  On  closer  inspection,  one  is  amazed 
at  the  untenability  of  its  hypothesis  and  the  shallow- 
ness of  its  objections.  When  we  hear  how  the  Trojan 
war  is  believed  to  have  reference  to  the  Northern  myth 
of  the  rape  of  the  sun-maiden;  how  Jacob  with  his  two 
wives  and  twelve  sons  is  explained  as  being  a  personifi- 
cation of  the  year,  in  which,  according  to  Jacob's  bless- 
ing, Naphthali  represents  January,  Ashur  December; 
how  the  Forty-fifth  Psalm  is  supposed  to  be  a  love 
song  composed  for  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  by  one  of 
his  courtiers;  and  how  in  January  (sic!)  of  the  year 
164  B.  C.  an  unknown  Jew  began  to  write  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  we  do  not  know  whether  to  be  more  amazed 
at  the  audacity  of  the  teachers  or  the  credulousness  of 
their  audience.  According  to  such  a  method  there  is 
scarcely  a  single  historical  fact  which  could  not  be  laid 
open  to  doubt,  not  an  historical  personage  who  could  not 
be  resolved  into  a  myth;  while  so  declared  a  materialist 
and  enemy  of  dogma  as  Vogt  writes :  "A  dogma,  how- 
ever tumble-down  it  may  be,  showing  cracks  and  rents 
in  all  directions,  can  not  be  looked  upon  as  constructed 
merely  of  air,  smoke,  and  mist;  the  myth  has  in  all  cases 
had  its  origin  in  some  fact." 

Forty  years  ago  critics  proved  that  there  had  never 


228  Science  and  Christianity 

been  a  Homer  nor  a  Troy,  and  in  1892  we  were  told 
that  the  name  ''Homeros"  was  a  Graecised  plural  of 
the  Celtic  "omar/'  a  collection,  in  order  that  "omeros" 
might  mean  "collections."  (Rieke.)  Then  Schliemann 
came  upon  the  scene,  and  without  much  ado  set  to 
work,  excavated  and  found  Troy  and  Mycenae ! 

Alas !  what  will  critical  research  one  day  make  of  us 
twentieth-century  persons,  if  indeed  it  take  any  notice 
of  us  at  all?  It  will  vaporize  us  into  phantoms  and 
shades,  into  myths  and  allegories.  We  can  imagine 
Macaulay's  New  Zealander,  or  some  Australian  or 
Japanese  of  the  year  3000,  if  the  world  is  then  in  exist- 
ence, after  sketching  the  ruins  of  London  and  Berlin, 
returning  to  his  own  country,  then  at  the  head  of  civil- 
ization, and  delivering  an  interesting  lecture  on  the 
Goethe  myth.  He  will  prove  brilliantly  and  conclu- 
sively that  it  was  quite  impossible  a  Goethe  could  have 
lived  at  the  time  stated,  as  not  a  trace  was  to  be  found  in 
his  writings  of  the  great  struggle  raging  at  that  period 
between  his  country  and  its  hereditary  enemy,  the 
Gauls.  "This  pretended  national  poet,"  he  will  exclaim, 
"has  not  a  word  to  say  about  his  compatriots  who  were 
then  fighting  and  dying  for  their  country;  he  has  not 
a  word  of  enthusiasm  for  the  rising  of  his  people  against 
the  tyrant;  nay,  the  man  does  not  even  appear  to  be 
aware  of  the  existence  of  such  a  person  as  Napoleon! 
And  yet  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  he  lived  at  the 
same  time,  and  was  actually  Minister  of  State  to  a  prince 
engaged  in  the  war !  You  see  how  such  an  assumption 
breaks  down  under  serious  criticism.  I  believe,  gentle- 
men," he  will  continue,  "that  if  you  will  permit  me  to 
lay  before  you  briefly  the  results  of  investigations  car- 


Science  229 

ried  on  through  many  years,  you  will  come  to  share 
my  view  that  we  must  on  no  account  imagine  an  his- 
torical personage  under  this  name.  The  name,  to  be- 
gin with,  Goethe — more  correctly,  Gothe — is  found,  on 
closer  investigation,  to  be  an  old  national  name  of  the 
Germans.  In  this  way,  then,  'the  collected  works  of 
Goethe,'  ascribed  to  this  man — according  to  the  newest 
reading,  'Works  collected  by  Goths' — display  such  vary- 
ing views  and  such  differences  in  their  intellectual 
standpoint,  and  also  in  language  and  style,  that  we 
must  look  upon  this  'Goth'  as  the  personified  genius  of 
the  Germanic  nation,  celebrated  as  thinkers,  in  the  va- 
rious phases  through  which  that  tribe  passed  in  the 
course  of  centuries. 

"Let  us  consider  the  fragments  still  extant,  which 
are  attributed  to  this  mythical  author.  In  the  popular 
poem,  'The  Erl-king,'  primitive  man  is  wandering 
through  the  night  in  constant  dread  of  the  dark  and  de- 
structive forces  of  Nature,  which  he  personifies,  and 
is  chiefly  concerned  with  the  preservation  of  his  material 
existence  and  the  propagation  of  his  species,  repre- 
sented by  the  child.  We  have  here  only  father  and  child, 
the  family  in  its  simplest  form.  The  State  does  not  as 
yet  exist,  and  the  complete  ignoring  of  the  mother 
points  clearly  to  the  subordinate  position  of  woman  in 
that  age.  In  agreement,  too,  with  the  oldest  historical 
sources,  the  horse  is  mentioned  as  the  only  domestic 
animal.  The  concluding  words,  however,  'The  child 
was  dead,'  supply  a  striking  refutation  of  the  assertion 
made  by  certain  idealists  that  the  idea  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  is  innate  in  man.  This  primitive  man, 
gentlemen,  did  not  even  know  that  he  had  a  'soul,' 


230  Science  and  Christianity 

and  thousands  of  years  probably  passed  before  he  ac- 
quired this  metaphysical  conception. 

''We  shall  not  be  far  wrong  in  placing  the  origin  of 
this  poem  in  the  primeval  period  of  this  people  and  in 
representing  to  ourselves  the  unknown  author  as  a 
troglodyte,  subsisting  on  acorns  and  horseflesh,  and 
in  constant  dread  of  the  elemental  forces  of  Nature. 

*'The  next  picture  is  somewhat  lighter.  The  alle- 
gorical poem  of  'Hermann  [or  German]  and  Dorothea' 
(according  to  the  newest  reading,  'Dothea'  or  'Go- 
thea,'  female  Goth),  belonging  to  a  later  period,  was 
originally  the  composition  of  certain  priests,  but  bears 
traces  of  several  later  elaborations,  interwoven  with 
moral  maxims  of  an  earlier  period.  It  describes  the 
peaceful  union,  after  a  struggle  of  centuries,  of  the  two 
peoples,  'Germans'  and  'Goths;'  and  in  it  pictures  of  the 
domestic  comfort  of  a  settled  race,  acquainted  with  agri- 
culture and  certain  trades,  are  not  wanting. 

"The  small  fragment  that  remains  of  'Gotz'  is  to- 
tally different  in  character.  Here,  it  appears,  we  have 
an  account  from  a  contemporary  of  a  proud  and  cruel 
tyrant,  whose  severity  and  inflexibility  is  symbolically 
represented  by  the  'iron  hand,'  which  has  been  taken 
literally  ( !)  by  some  simple  commentators,  but  which, 
as  has  been  proved,  owes  its  origin  to  the  mode  of  ex- 
pression then  in  use.  We  know  nothing  further  either 
of  the  obscure  author  or  of  the  chief  figure  of  the  drama, 
who  is  undoubtedly  non-historical. 

"The  last  and  most  remarkable  work  which  remains 
of  the  Goethe,  or  Gothe,  or  god — for,  besides  the  ety- 
mological connection  of  the  words,  the  ideas  seem  to 
have  developed,  one  from  the  other,  and  there  are  au- 


bcience  231 

thentic  traces  of  a  Goethe  cult — is  divided  into  two  parts, 
the  second  of  which,  though  written  centuries  later,  is 
unanimously  regarded  by  modern  criticism  as  a  continu- 
ation of  the  first;  the  first  part  of  the  name  of  whose 
hero,  Faust,  betrays  a  mythical  origin,  shows  a  decided 
relapse  into  barbarism.  Gloomy  superstition  alternates 
with  contempt  of  science;  the  devil  appears  in  person; 
people  still  believe  in  magic  and  witchcraft;  the  language 
is  uncouth  and  often  distinctly  coarse.  Hitherto,  for 
this  reason,  the  date  of  its  composition  has  been  placed 
after  A  and  B  with  certainty,  yet  not  before  C.  Since, 
however,  recent  research  has  enlarged  our  knowledge 
of  the  so-called  'Dark  Ages*  with  the  characteristics  of 
which  the  first  part  is  strikingly  in  harmony,  critics  as- 
sume that  this  partly  historical  but  much  mutilated 
poem  had  its  origin  about  the  year  913.  Unfortunately, 
we  know  nothing  of  the  author  of  this  work,  which  was 
formerly  falsely  attributed  to  the  'Goth/ 

'In  the  second  part  we  find  the  coarse  and  childish 
ideas  and  images  purified  and  spiritualized  into  philo- 
sophical allegories.  The  language  has  become  much 
more  scientific,  and,  therefore,  more  difficult  to  un- 
derstand; in  short,  the  whole  bears  witness  to  an  ad- 
vanced stage  of  intelligence  and  enlightenment.  In 
comparison  with  the  more  mythical  first  part,  the  sec- 
ond— at  least  as  far  as  the  figures  of  the  emperor  and  the 
courtiers  are  concerned — may  be  entitled  to  be  consid- 
ered as,  at  any  rate  partly,  historical.  Whether  one 
century  sufficed  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  refin- 
ing process,  or  whether  several  were  necessary,  is  a 
question  which  research  has  not  yet  satisfactorily  an- 
swered. 


232  Science  and  Christianity 

In  this  case,  too,  gentlemen,"  the  learned  profes- 
sor will  say,  concluding  his  interesting  and  instructive 
lecture,  "the  torch  of  critical  investigation  has  succeeded 
in  illumining  the  obscurity  in  which  the  lapse  of  cen- 
turies had  enveloped  the  mythical  figure  of  the  'Goth,' 
and  in  presenting  him  as  the  personification  of  the 
poetic  genius  of  this  once  powerful  nation."  (Loud 
applause.) 

Some  ambitious  youth  will  put  forward  the  proposi- 
tion that  the  giant  figure  of  Bismarck,  with  his  broad- 
brimmed  hat  and  big  dog,  borrowed  from  an  older  god — 
Odin  or  Wotan — was  originally  nothing  but  the  severe 
northern  winter.  He  w^ill  show  him  engaged  in  a  perpet- 
ual conflict  with  a  certain  Napollo,  or  Apollo  (the  N  de- 
noted then  negation  or  defeat),  a  sun-god  of  the  south, 
worshiped  from  most  ancient  times,  rising  in  the  east 
from  an  island  in  the  sea,  and  sinking  to  rest  in  the 
western  ocean.  His  twelve  "marshals"  evidently  rep- 
resent the  months;  and  symbolic  statuettes  of  him,  with 
a  star,  or  sun,  on  the  breast,  and  mystic  semi-circular 
headgear,  symbolizing  the  course  of  the  sun,  are  still 
found  here  and  there.  He  will  describe  how,  after  a 
long  struggle,  this  Northman,  or  winter-god,  leads  the 
sun-god  away  captive,  which  occurrence  is  celebrated 
by  a  national  festival  at  the  beginning  of  winter  (Sep- 
tember 2d).  He  will  point  out  the  numerous  discrep- 
ancies in  the  unreliable  sources  of  information,  and  how 
this  same  figure  is  represented,  according  to  the  changes 
of  season,  at  one  time  in  the  garb  of  a  commonplace 
Northern  squire,  at  another  as  ruler  of  the  world;  at 
one  time  as  universally  hated,  at  another  as  the  idol  of 
the  age;  now  as  the  friend  and  guest  of  Apollo,  and 


Science  233 

again  as  his  deadliest  foe.  He  appears  in  one  place 
as  friend  and  adviser,  in  another  as  bitter  opponent  of 
a  certain  Emperor  ''Wilhelm,"  who  is  described,  first 
as  a  white-bearded  old  man  (winter),  then  as  a  fiery 
youth  (the  spring  which  succeeds);  and  these  apparent, 
because  literally  understood,  contradictions  he  will  in- 
terpret and  explain  away  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of 
his  audience.  Finally  he  will  show  how  this  figure  of 
Bismarck,  which  originally  represented  winter,  gradually 
attained  another  significance  by  becoming,  to  the  popu- 
lar mind,  the  type  of  the  heroic  national  spirit,  which 
vanquished  the  hereditary  enemy.  "This  mythical 
Prussian  squire,  who  becomes  ruler  of  the  world,  is 
taken  later  on  as  the  symbol  of  the  small  State  of  Prus- 
sia, which  developed  with  extraordinary  rapidity  into 
a  great  power;  and  by  degrees  this  type  of  the  German 
people  is  endowed  by  the  popular  fancy  with  various 
attributes  of  Teutonic  origin,  such  as  the  great  appe- 
tite and  still  greater  thirst,  the  pencil  one  and  one-half 
feet  long,  the  long  pipe,  and  the  beer-mug,  at  the  same 
time  retaining  the  hat  and  dog  borrowed  from 
Odin,"  etc. 

All  that  is  required  is  a  moderate  amount  of  acumen 
and  a  certain  quantity  of  imagination,  in  order  to  be 
able  to  put  together  and  interpret  traditions  and  facts 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  out  just  what  one  wishes  to 
make  out,  just  what  will  coincide  with  one's  theory  or 
opinion. 

Or  a  still  easier  way  is  to  say:  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  prophecy,  .  .  .  because  there  is  no  such 
thing.  Where  it  occurs,  it  has  been  interpolated  later. 
But  as  no  one  knows  by  whom,  it  is  disposed  of  in  some 


234  Science  and  Christianity 

such  words  as,  ''The  unknown  author  of  this  Indubitably 
interpolated  passage."  The  process  is,  you  see,  exceed- 
ingly simple;  nevertheless  there  are  people  who  regard 
it  as  scientific. 

One  of  the  saddest  sides  of  modern  criticism  is  the 
desire  to  drag  down  every  great  personality  to  the 
critic's  own  level,  to  impute  all  great  and  magnanimous 
acts  to  mean,  selfish,  and  ambitious,  if  not  worse,  mo- 
tives, and  to  bring  to  light  or  invent  failings  in  all  the 
great  characters  of  history.  It  shows  of  what  spirit 
it  is  by  taking  delight  in  whitewashing  such  villains  as 
Nero,  Tiberius,  Henry  VIII,  etc.,  and  representing 
Moses,  Elijah,  Daniel,  and  the  evangelists  as  supersti- 
tious imbeciles,  or,  at  best,  well-meaning  deceivers,  if 
they  do  not  altogether  deny  their  existence.  The 
amount  of  injury  which  is  done  by  this  kind  of  criti- 
cism is  very  great.  Men  are  being  educated  more 
and  more  in  the  belief  that  the  human  race  has  been, 
for  four  thousand  years,  systematically  swindled  and 
deceived,  first  by  the  Bible,  and  then  by  each  source 
of  history  in  turn. 

We  are  to  believe  that  during  these  thousands  of 
years  even  the  best  and  wisest  of  men  have  been  quite 
incapable  of  discriminating  between  gross  imposture 
and  truth;  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  everything,  all  good- 
ness and  greatness,  rests,  more  or  less,  upon  deceit,  and 
true  wisdom  consists  in  scenting  everywhere  intentional 
falsehood  or  self-deception.  A  miserable,  mean,  nar- 
row standpoint  this,  which  can  only  bear  miserable  and 
unwholesome  fruit. 

There  are  spiritual  laws  and  analogies,  probabilities 
and  harmonies,  great  lines  and  sequences  in  the  history 


Science  235 

of  the  world,  which  are  of  far  greater  importance  to  a 
right  knowledge  and  understanding  of  it  than  any  clev- 
erly-filled gaps  in  the  accounts  or  apparent  contradic- 
tions in  the  documents  (as  if  the  world  and  the  life  of 
each  individual  were  not  full  of  contradictions),  or 
sources  of  doubtful  authenticity,  or  isolated  testimonies 
from  possibly  ignorant  or  misinformed  or  hostile  con- 
temporaries, on  whose  authority  criticism  often  pre- 
sumes to  give  the  lie  to  the  unanimous  opinion  of  thou- 
sands in  all  centuries,  the  consensus  gentium,  and  the 
judgment  of  the  spirit;  for  with  all  its  pretended  acumen 
critical  unbelief  rests  mainly  on  a  lack  of  true  acumen, 
of  a  feeling  for  what  is  true  and  standard,  on  the  inabil- 
ity to  distinguish  what  is  immaterial  from  what  is  im- 
portant, or  to  see  the  logic  and  the  justice  of  things, 
we  see  daily  how  Httle  clearness  and  intellectual  power 
goes  to  the  making  of  a  skeptical  critic,  who  can  not 
see  the  rock  for  weeds  and  bushes,  nor  the  wood  be- 
cause of  the  trees. 

That  William  Tell  and  Joan  of  Arc  never  existed, 
or  that  Shakespeare  did  not  write  the  plays  attributed 
to  him,  is,  apart  from  any  counter-proof,  a  psychological 
absurdity,  in  which  only  those  can  believe  who  have  no 
standard  of  truth  in  themselves.  It  is  the  common 
fate  of  such  people  to  fall  victims  to  every  critical  im- 
posture out  of  sheer  dread  of  being  imposed  on.  The 
charity  which  "believeth  all  things"  is,  at  the  same  time, 
the  highest  wisdom;  and  God  takes  care  that  it  has 
much  to  believe. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  an  appalling 
amount  of  falsehood  and  deceit  in  the  world;  but  there 
is  far  more  truth.     Falsehood  usually  swims  on  the 


236  Science  and  Christianity 

surface,  concerns  itself  more  with  what  is  trivial  and 
transient.  At  the  bottom,  the  world  is  based  upon 
truth;  how  else  should  it  endure? 

God  takes  care  that,  as  a  rule,  justice  gets  her  rights, 
even  in  this  world,  in  spite  of  the  number  of  unjust  men, 
and  also  that  mankind  should  not  be  nourished  on  lies. 
How  else  could  they  live?  It  is  a  part  of  the  rule  of 
Providence  that  the  fundamental  truths  of  history  have 
remained  true  down  to  our  times.  All  the  inventions 
and  discoveries  made  by  man  have  been  adapted,  in  a 
wonderful  manner,  to  his  intellectual  condition  and  re- 
quirements at  the  time;  and  it  has  been  ordained  that 
in  this  century,  in  which  reigns  a  critical  temper  of  mind, 
which  would  cast  doubts  on  the  whole  past  of  the  human 
race,  this  past  should  rise  in  a  marvelous  way  from 
its  ashes.  The  graves  and  tumuli,  the  cave-remains  and 
the  lake-dwellings,  the  magnificent  ships  of  the  Vikings 
and  the  galley  of  Tiberius;  Egypt,  with  her  religion, 
her  laws  and  customs;  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  with  their 
palaces  and  Hbraries;  Troy  and  Pompeii,  their  games 
and  domestic  life, — all  have  risen  and  are  rising  from 
their  graves!  And  we  look  on  and  wonder;  for  what 
the  Bible  tells  and  what  Homer  sings  of  these  things, 
so  it  is!  And  even  old  Herodotus,  with  his  tales  of 
pigmies  in  Africa,  the  labyrinth,  dolphins  trained  for 
fishing,  and  many  other  wonderful  things,  has  not  al- 
together deluded  us. 


We  readily  admit  that  science  has  its  place  in  the 
life  of  man  and  mankind;  for  the  faculty  of  knowing 
is  one  of  the  most  precious  gifts  which  God  has  be- 


Science  237 

stowed  upon  His  creatures;  and  the  proper  use  of  this 
inestimable  talent  has  done  great  and  good  work.  But 
render  to  each  one  the  things  that  are  his. 

In  taking  a  survey  of  the  history  of  the  world,  we 
find,  not  without  some  surprise,  that  science  has  never 
been  an  important  factor.  It  has  never  either  estab- 
lished or  destroyed  an  empire.  Not  by  the  help  of 
science  did  Alexander,  Caesar,  Tamerlane,  or  Attila,  not 
to  mention  Buddha  and  Mohammed,  conquer  their 
world.  Science  did  not  bring  about  the  descent  of  the 
barbarians  on  Rome,  the  Crusades,  the  Reformation, 
or  the  French  Revolution.  Neither  Napoleon's  empire 
nor  the  German  Empire  arose  through  science;  and 
the  world-war  and  the  social  crisis,  which  are  to  come 
in  the  future,  will  neither  be  prevented  by  means  of 
science,  nor  won  and  vanquished  by  it. 

The  poets  to  whom  the  world  has  listened  in  every 
age  did  not  sing  of  science.  It  is  not  science  which  gives 
to  youth  its  charm,  to  woman  her  beauty  and  sweetness, 
to  old  age  its  venerableness  and  its  pathos.  We  must 
look  elsewhere  for  the  springs  of  life.  The  Spirit  now 
whispers  softly  as  ^olian  harps  through  the  world,  now 
wails  through  the  forest,  presaging  misfortune;  now 
gathering  in  fury,  becomes  a  tempest,  a  hurricane, 
sweeping  before  it,  like  withered  leaves,  men  and  na- 
tions. This  Samson,  as  was  said  long  ago  by  Matthias 
Claudius,  does  not  critically  examine  whether  the  locks 
and  bolts  of  the  gate  are  securely  fastened,  whether  it 
is  made  of  solid  wood,  and  of  what  kind;  but  with 
laughter  he  tears  up  gate  and  lintel  and  posts,  and  car- 
ries them  up  the  mountain.  Where,  however,  the  spirit 
is  lacking,  and  "the  godlike  madness,  which  is  better 


238  Science  and  Christianity 

than  sober  deliberateness"  (Plato),  the  only  thing  is  to 
seat  one's  self  at  one's  writing-table,  and  set  about  prov- 
ing, with  more  or  less  ingenuity,  that  there  is  neither 
spirit,  nor  storm,  nor  hurricane — all  that  is  but  the 
snoring  of  the  Absolute,  alias  World-idea.  And  he  who 
knows  no  better  cries  aloud  for  the  space  of  two  hours, 
"Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians!" 

It  is  evident  that  science  is  not  indispensable  to 
action.  Daily,  unlearned  and  noble-hearted  men  and 
women  do  great  and  good  deeds  which  compel  our  ad- 
miration. The  people  of  the  Hebrews,  the  Romans  of 
the  Republic,  the  Persians  of  the  time  of  Cyrus,  the 
Spartans,  the  Teutons  of  whom  Tacitus  writes,  were  all, 
without  any  knowledge  of  science,  upright,  happy,  and 
contented,  as  are,  at  the  present  day,  the  simple,  true, 
and  honest,  shrewd  and  humorous  Bavarians  and  Ty- 
rolese,  Swiss,  and  Norwegians.  Besides  the  men  of 
the  Bible,  the  fishermen  of  Gennesaret,  who  conquered 
half  the  world  by  their  preaching  of  the  cross,  there 
have  been,  in  all  ages,  great  men  who  were  not  learned 
men,  the  saints  and  the  benefactors  of  mankind,  the 
divinely-gifted  artists,  and  the  men  of  iron,  who  were 
the  support  of  their  nation  in  times  of  storm  and  stress. 
Tyndall,  himself  a  man  of  great  learning,  says  can- 
didly, ''There  are  things  which  are  of  greater  value  than 
science:  nobility  of  character;"  and  Plato  gives  this 
definition  of  a  good  life :  To  think  what  is  true,  to  feel 
what  is  beautiful,  and  to  desire  what  is  good. 

Science  is  no  substitute  for  the  faith,  hope,  and 
charity  which  move  the  world,  and,  great  as  it  is,  can 
neither  give  man  happiness  in  life  nor  comfort  in  death. 
It  does  not  make  him  better  either,  much  as  its  enno- 


Science  239 

bling  moral  influence  is  lauded  at  educational  and  other 
congresses.  Science  is  a  power  like  electricity  or  gun- 
powder, a  power  in  the  sense  in  which  money  is  a  power, 
but  is  in  itself  as  little  moral  or  immoral,  noble  or 
ignoble,  as  electricity,  gunpowder,  and  money.  The 
moral  man  uses  his  knowledge  and  his  wealth  in  a 
moral  manner;  the  immoral  man  in  an  immoral  man- 
ner. This  is  seen  in  the  case  of  Communists,  Russian 
nihilists  and  anarchists,  who  are  often  men  of  consider- 
able scientific  attainments.  Dostojewsky  says  of  the 
criminals  in  the  Siberian  ostrog,  almost  all  of  whom 
were  murderers,  ''Half  of  them  were  educated,  and 
could  read  and  write  well;"  and  adds,  ''Where  would 
one  find,  elsewhere  in  Russia,  two  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
taken  from  all  classes,  half  of  whom  could  read  and 
write?"  It  is  a  terrible  thought  that,  as  we  have  already 
said,  the  number  of  juvenile  criminals  increased  in 
Germany  fifty-one  per  cent  between  1882  and  1892,  in 
spite  of  compulsory  school  attendance  and  improved 
educational  methods.  These  are  melancholy  facts  and 
results  which  no  amount  of  fine  talk  about  progress  at 
educational  conferences  can  do  away  with.  In  this 
department,  more  than  in  any  other,  is  it  true  that 
"by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  If  modern  edu- 
cation would  give  us,  instead  of  advanced  theories,  new 
systems,  psychological  and  psychopathical  ideas  and 
experiments,  youths  who,  like  the  Persians  of  old, 
learned  "to  fear  the  gods,  to  honor  their  parents,  and 
to  speak  the  truth,"  we  should  believe  in  it.  Even  the 
advanced  and  enlightened  Figaro  wrote  indignantly  on 
the  crime  of  the  talented  and  cultivated  assassin,  Emile 
Henry :  "It  has  come  to  this  in  the  nineteenth  century ! 


240  Science  and  Christianity 

This  is  what  pride  of  free  thought  and  the  whole  farce 
of  compulsory  education  ends  in !  The  youth,  on  leav- 
ing school,  very  soon  forgets  who  invented  the  loco- 
motive, the  electric  telegraph,  or  the  antiseptic  treat- 
ment; but  he  will  never  forget  the  name  of  Vaillant  or 
that  of  the  wretch  who  followed  his  example.  It  is 
discouraging  to  the  last  degree!" 

Neither  science  nor  even  education  is  potent  to 
make  men  better;  and  the  fallacy  of  the  hope  that  the 
spread  of  popular  education  will  avail  to  stem  the  tide 
of  socialism  is  being  ever  more  and  more  clearly  demon- 
strated. The  majority  of  socialists  and  anarchists  are, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  better  educated  than  the  conserva- 
tive country  people.  That  knowledge  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  wisdom  is  a  truth  which  we  are  nowadays  too 
apt  to  forget. 

In  practical  life,  too,  science  is  not  everything.  Men 
arrived  long  ago  at  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  "to 
know"  is  not  necessarily  synonymous  with  ''to  be  able;" 
that  learning  and  ingenuity,  though  occasionally  united, 
are  by  no  means  identical.  Mother-wit  and  presence  of 
mind,  courage  and  resolution,  are  often  better  than 
any  amount  of  learning.  The  Germans  are  undoubt- 
edly, as  regards  science  and  philosophy,  the  foremost 
nation  of  the  world;  but  the  unpractical  German  savant 
has  passed  into  a  proverb;  while  the  Englishman  in 
the  colonies,  without  any  bureaucratic  education  or 
scientific  study,  will  instantly  form  a  correct  judgment, 
and  act  on  it. 

Religion  and  education  are  not  sciences,  the  study 
of  which  is  necessary  to  everlasting  life  and  the  proper 
bringing-up  of  children.     If  it  were  so,  it  would  be  a 


Science  241 

sad  thing  for  the  thousands  of  poor,  uneducated  men 
and  women  who  would  fain  go  to  heaven  and  bring 
their  children  up  properly  too.  "Religion,"  says  Pas- 
cal, that  deep  thinker,  ''is  God  manifest  to  the  heart;" 
and  true  education  is,  first  of  all,  a  natural  education. 
The  fear  of  God  and  maternal  love  are  gifts  of  God, 
and  stand  far  above  science.  The  greatest  men  of 
God — the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  David,  Elijah,  John  the  Baptist — did  not  make 
a  scientific  study  of  religion;  nor  were  these  men,  or 
Christ  himself,  brought  up  on  any  educational  system, 
but  naturally.  And  how  many  uneducated  mothers 
have  brought  up  great  and  good  sons!  For  there  is 
an  intuition,  a  spiritual  beholding  and  feeling  of  truth 
and  right,  which  has  no  need  of  deduction  and  explana- 
tion. Science  is  of  value  only  in  the  domain  of  the 
intellect.  In  the  domain  of  soul  and  spirit  it  is  not 
needed.  A  woman  with  no  scientific  knowledge  what- 
ever will  sometimes  with  a  word  confute  the  dry-as- 
dust  student.  Undoubtedly  there  is  much  to  be  learned 
from  pedagogical  and  religious  text-books;  but  they 
have  never  made  an  educationalist  or  a  man  of  God 
who  was  not  one  already  by  the  grace  of  God. 

One  word  more  about  ''popular  science,"  an  ex- 
pression which  is  its  own  condemnation.  The  popular 
is  never  scientific,  nor  the  scientific  popular.  This  fact 
deserves  more  attention  from  the  well-intentioned 
savants  who  do  not  understand  the  people,  and  from 
the  philanthropists  who  do  not  know  what  science  is. 
To  be  scientific  requires  as  special  a  talent  as  to  be 
an  artist;  the  former  talent  is,  indeed,  probably  rarer. 
In  the  first  place,  it  requires  a  strong  desire  to  under- 
16 


242  Science  and  Christianity 

stand  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  He  who  is  in- 
different to  the  reason  why  the  apple  falls  and  the 
pendulum  swings  isochronically  has  no  talent  for 
science,  though  he  may  be  witty,  clever,  practical,  and 
an  excellent  citizen,  husband,  father,  friend,  and  Chris- 
tian, a  matter  of  far  greater  importance.  Secondly, 
science  demands  the  capability  of  concentrating  one's 
thoughts  for  a  length  of  time.  And,  lastly,  it  needs  a 
long,  patient,  and  persevering  process  of  working  one's 
self  into  the  elements  and  fundamental  laws  of  knowl- 
edge. People  in  general  are  wanting  in  the  first  two 
qualities,  and  they  have  not  time  for  the  last.  We 
have  doubtless  all  had  occasion  to  observe  how  people 
who  had  attended  a  popular  lecture  on  science,  next 
day  remembered  nothing  of  it  but  a  few  witticisms  which 
had  aroused  great  hilarity.  The  sensible  workingman 
rightly  prefers  to  take  his  hardly-earned  rest  and  recre- 
ation with  his  family,  or  in  the  open  air,  rather  than 
in  the  form  of  a  diluted  and  sugared  draught  of  popular 
science. 

We  heartily  recommend  the  spread  of  a  solid,  use- 
ful, and  connected  knowledge  of  geography,  history, 
and  natural  history,  with  regard  to  which,  in  the  pres- 
ent day,  we  might  in  many  cases  say.  The  more  learned, 
the  less  gained.  Of  what  advantage  is  it  to  the  ordinary 
artisan  or  tradesman,  however  good  at  his  own  business, 
to  know  the  dynasties  of  the  Pharaohs  or  the  details 
of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession?  Of  what  use 
are  names  such  as  Graian  and  Cottian  Alps;  of  what 
use  to  know  the  dental  formula  of  the  pig,  or  the  per- 
centage of  nitrogen  in  the  bean,  or  unreliable  statistics 
as  to  the  relative  value  of  food-products?  A  soHd  knowl- 


Science  243 

edge  of  a  multitude  of  useful  facts  is,  however,  not 
science.  That  only  begins  with  the  inquiry  into  causes, 
with  the  discussion  of  the  intellectual  value  of  facts. 
''The  roots  of  phenomena,"  says  Tyndall,  "are  imbed- 
ded in  a  region  beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses;  and 
less  than  the  root  of  the  matter  will  never  satisfy  the 
scientific  mind." 

A  nation  of  scientists,  if  such  a  monstrosity  were 
possible,  would  be  a  phenomenon  as  sad,  because  as 
unnatural,  and  consequently  injurious,  as  a  nation  com- 
posed entirely  of  painters  or  lawyers.  Good  and  nec- 
essary as  salt  is  for  man,  he  could  not  live  on  salt  alone. 

If  you  really  wish  to  gain  a  true  idea  of  present-day 
education  and  culture,  take  your  stand  on  the  pavement 
of  one  of  our  capitals,  and  stop  the  first  ten  gentlemen 
who  are  on  their  way  to  club  or  theater  in  the  proud 
consciousness  of  belonging  to  the  twentieth  century, 
the  age  of  enlightenment  and  progress.  I  do  not  mean 
that  you  are  to  drive  them  into  a  corner  by  asking  them 
scientific  questions  on  the  embryogeny  of  the  rabbit 
or  the  theory  of  the  polarization  of  light.  Ask  them, 
simply  a  few  questions  about  God  and  the  world,  about 
what  concerns  them  and  surrounds  them,  about  the 
things  which  interest  every  one  and  are  of  impor- 
tance to  every  one.  Ask  them,  first,  their  concep- 
tion of  God  and  their  relation  to  him.  If  they 
answer,  ''There  is  no  God,"  then  ask  them  how  the 
universe  originated.  If  they  say,  '*Of  itself,"  ask  them 
the  simplest  questions  about  the  heavens  above  and 
the  earth  beneath;  ask  them  what  the  sun  is,  and  what 
the  earth;  why  we  see  always  our  side  of  the  moon; 
why  the  days  increase  and  decrease  in  length;  why  it 


244  Science  and  Christianity 

is  warm  in  summer  and  cold  in  winter.  If  they  can  not 
tell  you,  come  down  to  the  earth,  and  ask  them  about 
the  sea  and  ships,  and  how  they  sail  with  the  wind 
against  them;  about  mountains,  and  of  what  rocks  and 
strata  the  hills  of  their  native  country  consist,  and 
whence  come  the  many  fossils;  ask  them  about  fish  and 
their  gills,  about  shellfish  and  how  their  hard  shells 
grow,  about  beetles  and  caterpillars,  about  trees  and 
fruit  culture,  or  about  their  own  bodies  and  what  and 
how  many  bones  they  have.  If  they  tell  you  they  are 
townspeople,  and  have  not  much  acquaintance  with 
nature,  ask  these  citizens  of  the  State  questions  on  poli- 
tics and  religion,  the  powers  of  Parliament,  and  what 
constitutes  eHgibility  for  election,  what  are  their  rights 
and  duties  as  citizens,  to  what  laws  they  are  subject, 
what  is  permitted  and  what  prohibited;  ask  about  the 
Constitution  of  their  country.  If  they  answer  that  they 
are  better  informed  on  practical  matters,  ask  them 
something  about  house-building  or  gardening,  about 
electric  tramways,  or  what  a  turbine  is,  or  how  the  loco- 
motive draws  the  train,  or  what  is  the  newest  telegraph, 
what  a  gas-motor  is,  or  what  they  know  about  the  tele- 
phone which  they  use  daily.  In  short,  ask  them  any- 
thing about  the  world  and  nature,  about  past  or  pres- 
ent, about  geography  or  botany,  about  art  or  literature, 
painting  or  architecture,  philosophy  or  phychology. 

Ten  to  one,  their  answers,  if  you  get  any  at  all,  and 
if  they  have  not  long  ago  told  you  to  go  to  the  devil  with 
your  questions,  will  open  your  eyes  as  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  educated  classes. 


Science  245 

How  unjustifiable  and  untrue  the  saying  is,  He  who 
knows  does  not  believe! — and  that  faith  is  no  enemy 
to  knowledge,  and  neither  hinders  nor  obscures  it,  is 
shown  by  the  names  of  the  great  scientists  who  were 
at  the  same  time  earnest  Christians.  It  is  quite  incred- 
ible that  belief  in  God,  or  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
or  in  redemption  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  should 
unfit  one  for  an  intelligent  and  accurate  observation  of 
nature.  The  materialist  has  no  monopoly  of  scientific 
facts.  We  Christians  are  able  to  test  them  as  well  as  he. 
There  is  no  field  which  is  not  equally  open  to  us.  We, 
too,  can  make  deductions,  draw  just  conclusions,  pro- 
pound scientific  hypotheses  and  systems,  and  test  their 
worth.  Faith,  which  stands  altogether  on  a  different 
footing,  does  not  exclude  all  this.  It  is  impossible  to 
see  why  my  being  religious  should  prevent  my  discov- 
ering, with  the  help  of  a  microscope,  the  cross-stripes 
on  the  Pleurosignia  angulata  or  Surirella  gemma;  or  my 
drawing  accurate  charts  of  the  double  canals  in  Mars 
by  the  help  of  the  telescope;  or  gaining,  like  Liebig  and 
Secchi,  a  deep  insight  into  the  starry  worlds  on  high 
and  the  atom  world  of  the  infinitely  small. 

Experience  rather  shows  that  Christian  faith  favors 
a  broad  view,  a  correct  appreciation  of  the  ground  prin- 
ciples. The  historian  of  materialism,  Albert  Lange, 
himself  admits  that  "it  is  not  the  most  thorough  stu- 
dents, the  discoverers  and  inventors,  the  greatest  mas- 
ters, who  busy  themselves  with  the  propagation  of  ma- 
terialistic doctrines."  (Die  Naturwissenschaft,  Vol. 
II,  p.  140.) 

Many  unbelievers  have  rendered  great  services  to 
science  in  all  its  branches,  also  as  specialists;  but  the 


246  Science  and  Christianity 

work  of  the  great  Christian  students  of  nature  has  been, 
to  a  greater  degree,  epoch-making,  has  opened  up  more 
avenues,  and  has  shed  the  light  of  science  to  greater 
distances.  We  will  recount  their  names  so  long  as  our 
opponents  persist  in  proclaiming  the  falsehood  that 
belief  is  the  enemy  of  science;  for  these  names  are  in 
themselves  a  refutation  of  the  falsehood.  Great  Chris- 
tians and  eminent  men  of  science  were:  Copernicus, 
the  founder  of  our  modern  world-system,  a  man  of  sin- 
cere piety,  whose  epitaph  runs  thus,  ''I  desire  not  the 
grace  which  Thou  hast  bestowed  on  Paul,  nor  the  mercy 
with  which  thou  hast  pardoned  Peter:  that  which  thou 
hast  granted  to  the  dying  thief  is  all  I  ask;"  Kepler, 
whose  laws,  together  with  those  of  Newton,  form  the 
basis  of  our  astronomy,  who  concludes  his  most  im- 
portant work  with  the  beautiful  words:  ''I  thank  thee, 
Lord  and  Creator,  that  thou  hast  given  me  this  joy 
in  thy  creation,  this  delight  in  the  works  of  thy  hands. 
I  have  proclaimed  the  glory  of  thy  works  to  man  in  as 
far  as  my  finite  mind  was  capable  of  grasping  thy  in- 
finity. If  I  have  said  anything  which  is  unworthy  of 
thee,  or  if  I  have  sought  after  mine  own  honor,  of  thy 
mercy,  forgive  me!"  the  great  Isaac  Newton,  a  dili- 
gent reader  of  the  Bible,  and  also  of  the  mystic,  Jacob 
Boehme;  who  uncovered  his  head  at  every  mention  of 
the  name  of  God^  and  of  whom  Liebig  says,  "More 
light  was  given  out  by  a  single  great  genius,  by  New- 
ton, than  a  thousand  years  before  him  were  able  to 
produce"  (Chemische  Briefe,  p.  4);  Linnaeus,  whom 
Professor  Fraas  designates  as  "acknowledged  to  be  the 
greatest  naturalist  of  all  time,  the  creator  of  natural 
history  as  a  science"  (Vor  der  Sintfieet,  p.  501),  who, 


Science  247 

on  discovering  inflorescence,  cried  out,  delightedly,  "I 
have  seen  the  footprints  of  God !"  Cuvier,  the  firm  be- 
liever in  the  Bible,  the  founder  of  palaeontology,  ac- 
cording to  Professor  Quenstedt,  the  greatest  zoologist 
of  two  centuries;  William  Herschel,  perhaps  the  great- 
est of  astronomers,  who  says:  ''The  wider  the  field  of 
science  extends,  the  more  numerous  and  indisputable 
become  the  proofs  of  the  eternal  existence  of  a  creative 
and  almighty  Wisdom;"  Leibnitz,  the  powerful  thinker, 
as  Dubois-Reymond  calls  him,  and  author  of  the  hymn, 
''Jesu,  whose  death  and  suffering  have  brought  us  joy 
and  life;"  Euler,  the  great  mathematician,  who  wrote 
in  the  year  1767,  "A  Defense  of  Divine  Revelation 
Against  the  Objections  of  Free-thinkers."  We  may 
add,  too,  Lavoisier,  who  laid  the  foundation-stone  of 
chemistry  with  his  discovery  of  oxygen  and  oxidation, 
who  writes  in  his  "Traite  de  Chimie"  (page  20),  "With 
the  creation  of  light,  God  poured  out  upon  the  earth 
the  principle  of  organic  matter,  of  feeling,  and  of 
thought."  Biichner  says  of  him,  "Our  whole  modern 
science  rests  upon  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
as  well  as  on  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  substance, 
discovered  by  Lavoisier"  (Die  chemischen  Elemente); 
and  Liebig :  "Since  the  discovery  of  ogygen  the  civilized 
world  has  undergone  a  revolution  in  customs  and  hab- 
its." Liebig,  himself  "the  prince  of  German  chemists," 
joyfully  confesses,  in  his  celebrated  "Chemical  Letters," 
^is  belief  in  God,  and  writes,  "The  chief  value  and  glory 
of  science  is  that  it  promotes  true  Christianity."  (Che- 
mische  Briefe,  page  41.)  Then  there  is  the  great  and 
yet  eminently  religious  astronomer,  Secchi,  and  also 
Madler,  the  discoverer  of  the  important  fact  that  Al- 


248  Science  and  Christianity 

cyone,  one  of  the  Pleiades  is  the  center  of  gravity  of  our 
solar  system,  a  fact  which  has,  for  thousands  of  years, 
lain  hidden  in  the  Book  of  Job.  (See  Dr.  Macmillan's 
''Bible-teachings  in  Nature,"  Chapter  I.)  Madler's  as- 
tronomy bears  the  motto,  "The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  the  eternal  God;"  and  he  writes,  "A  true  student  of 
nature  can  not  be  an  unbeliever :  natural  law  and  God's 
law  are  one  and  the  same."  Ritter,  the  greatest  of  ge- 
ographers, exclaims :  "The  world  is  everywhere  full  of 
the  majesty  of  the  Creator."  We  must  not  forget, 
too,  the  great  electrician,  Faraday,  who  also  held 
Bible-classes.  How  many  men  of  science  might  be  men- 
tioned who  were  at  least  earnest.  God-fearing  men: 
Cartesius  and  the  great  Haller,  Bernouilli,  Brewster, 
Biot,  Ampere,  Quatrefages,  Agassiz,  Pasteur,  etc.;  and, 
in  conclusion,  let  me  add  Robert  Mayer,  the  discoverer 
of  the  unity  of  force,  the  greatest  scientific  discovery 
of  this  century,  who  exclaimed  to  a  science  congress  at 
Innsbruck,  "Out  of  the  fullness  of  my  heart  I  cry,  A 
right  philosophy  ought  to  be,  and  can  be,  nothing  else 
than  a  propaganda  of  the  Christian  religion."  (Die 
Mechanik  der  Warme,  p.  318.) 

In  face  of  such  facts  the  materialist  ought,  instead 
of  calling  us  obscurists,  to  thank  us  for  the  brilliant 
torches  which  we  Christians  have  lighted  for  him,  and 
without  whose  light  he  would  be  centuries  behind. 

This  scientific  faculty  among  Christians  shows  up 
more  brightly  when  we  consider  how  greatly  they  are 
in  the  minority  in  the  world.  The  supposition  that,  in 
Europe,  they  are  outnumbered  a  hundred-fold  by  non- 
Christians  is  probably  within  the  mark.  The  few  Chris- 
tians, then,  have,  during  the  last  century  or  two,  done 


Science  249 

far  more  for  science  than  the  non-Christians.  Faith 
conduces  more  to  an  understanding  of  Nature  than 
unbeHef.  What  becomes  of  the  declaration  that  it  is 
the  enemy  of  science  in  the  Hght  of  facts? 

From  the  facts  it  becomes  evident  that  the  Christian 
faith,  Hke  science,  rests  upon  clear  and  positive  facts. 
It  is  true  that  it  is  a  favorite  notion  nowadays  that  a 
man  may  be  intellectually  great  and  small  at  the  same 
time,  both  true  and  false;  a  noble  man  and  a  swindler; 
a  great  mind  in  one  field,  in  another  weak;  and  that 
prophets  and  apostles,  for  instance,  in   spite  of  their 
dominant   personality  and   the   power   of  their  world- 
conquering   words,   were   unreliable,    irresponsible    en- 
thusiasts,  incapable  of  discriminating  between  a  mir- 
acle and  the  simplest  natural  occurrence;  or  that,  not- 
withstanding the  beauty  and  loftiness  of  their  moral 
teaching,  they  were  cunning  impostors,  who  deluded 
the  world  into  a  belief  in  miracles,  such  as  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ,  which  never  took  place.     We  believe 
that  a  great  mind  may  make  mistakes,  but  not  that  it 
is  possible  to  be  in  one  domain  a  great,  deep,  and  log- 
ical thinker,  and  in  another  narrow,  confused,  and  ir- 
rational.   We  can  not  conceive  that  a  clear  and  power- 
ful intellect  like  that  of  Newton  could  suddenly  believe 
all  kinds  of  absurd  nonsense  as  soon  as  he  came  within 
the  province  of  religion;  but  we  believe  that  also  on 
this  subject  his  great  mind  tested  and  proved.    We  know 
that  Paul,  Augustine,  and  Luther  were  not  the  men 
to  accept  anything  hastily,  without  due  and  careful  ex- 
amination. 

It  is  astonishing  how  many  Christians  listen  abashed, 
and  without  a  word  of  reply,  to  the  taunts  of  their  op- 


250  Science  and  Christianity 

ponents  that  their  belief  shuns  the  light,  rests  only 
upon  a  more  or  less  obscure  sentimentality,  and  not, 
like  science,  upon  clear,  indisputable  facts,  etc.  It  would 
be,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  very  remarkable  and  totally  in- 
explicable that  a  belief  which  shuns  the  light  should 
have  conquered  the  world,  and  compelled  the  chief 
nations  of  mankind  to  profess  Christianity,  if  only  in 
name.  Did  the  apostles  at  Ephesus,  at  Athens,  before 
the  high-priests  at  Jerusalem,  before  pro-consuls  and 
Roman  emperors,  shun  the  light  of  publicity?  Or  was 
it  the  case  with  Calvin  at  Geneva,  or  with  Luther  at 
Worms?  Are  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  full  of  emotion 
and  sentiment,  or  do  they  contain,  in  clear  and  logical, 
if  impetuous  language,  a  justification  of  that  faith  to 
Jews  and  Gentiles? 

The  cross  now  reigns  from  the  North  Pole  to  the 
South,  from  east  to  west;  and  if  you  were  to  land  on 
Spitzbergen  or  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  crosses 
on  the  graves  would  show  you  that  there,  too,  men 
believe,  or  profess  to  believe,  in  the  Crucified. 
Can  any  one  soberly  believe  that  there  is  nothing  in 
this  greatest  phenomenon  of  the  world's  history?  We 
are  to  credit  that  a  delusion,  dreams  of  self-deceived  en- 
thusiasts, sufficed  to  lift  the  Old  World  off  its  hinges, 
and  to  revolutionize  the  thoughts,  views,  and  opinions 
of  civilized  humanity.  Or  is  it  possible  that  the  thou- 
sands of  Christians  who,  since  the  Apostolic  age,  have 
preached  the  gospel,  all  the  missionaries — like  Egede, 
the  apostle  of  the  Greenlanders :  Gutzlaff,  of  the  Chi- 
nese; Zinzendorf,  Williams,  Krapf,  Moffat,  Paton — those 
heroes  of  self-sacrifice  and  self-denial  and  true  human- 
ity, would  have  wandered  over  the  heathen  world,  borne 


Science  251 

hunger  and  thirst,  dangers  and  privations  innumerable, 
nay,  in  many  cases,  have  suffered  a  cruel  death,  merely 
in  order  systematically  to  deceive  the  poor,  ignorant 
savages,  to  prejudice  them  against  the  light  of  science, 
and  to  establish  over  them  a  sacerdotal  sway?  Such  im- 
putations are  their  own  condemnation. 

From  time  to  time  it  has  happened  that  error  has 
done  a  great  work;  but  on  careful  consideration  it  will 
be  found  that  it  derived  its  strength  from  the  measure 
of  truth  bound  up  with  it.  Mohammed,  for  example, 
whom  many  misjudge  on  the  strength  of  legends  of 
later  date,  this  Moses  on  his  own  account,  whom  God 
gave  to  the  wild  offspring  of  Abraham,  the  sons  of 
Ishmael,  in  order  to  raise  them  from  the  worship  of 
idols  and  moral  depravity,  to  become  afterwards  a  de- 
struction to  heathendom  and  a  scourge  to  degenerate 
Christendom,  is  a  case  in  point.  The  truths  which 
gave  into  his  hand  the  sword  with  which  he  was  able 
to  subdue  millions,  and  spread  his  doctrines  within  two 
centuries  from  Delhi  to  Granada,  were  that  he  preached 
the  one  God  who  created  heaven  and  earth,  and  who 
will,  one  day,  judge  the  world,  and  called  him  the  Merci- 
ful; that  he  commanded  justice,  prayer,  and  almsgiv- 
ing; that  he  proclaimed.  What  God  sends,  were  it  death, 
and  worse  than  death,  is  good  and  best.  Allah  akbar ! 
God  is  great!  The  lie,  the  falsehood  which  is  wholly 
false  is  powerless  and  unproductive  of  great  results.  Let 
any  one  try  to  accomplish  anything  in  the  world  by 
preaching  that  2^2  is  not  4.  Carlyle  says :  "A  false  man 
found  a  religion?  Why,  a  false  man  can  not  build  a 
brick  house!  If  he  do  not  know  and  follow  truly  the 
properties  of  mortar,  burnt  clay,  and  what  else  he  works 


252  Science  and  Christianity 

in,  it  is  no  home  that  he  makes,  but  a  rubbish-heap.  It 
will  not  stand  for  twelve  centuries,  to  lodge  a  hundred 
and  eighty  millions;  it  will  fall  straightway."  (Heroes 
and  Hero  Worship.     Mahomet.) 

On  the  contrary,  the  Christian  religion,  like  science, 
is  founded  on  clear,  daily-recurring  facts,  easily  recog- 
nizable by  an  impartial  observer.  Is  it  not  a  fact,  and 
does  not  every  village  church  and  the  great  cathedrals 
of  Cologne  and  Canterbury,  Notre  Dame  and  Milan, 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  bear  silent  yet  eloquent  witness 
to  the  fact  that,  with  a  few  words,  without  arming  one 
man  in  his  cause,  without  writing  a  line,  without  the 
expenditure  of  one  coin,  an  obscure  carpenter's  Son, 
who  spent  a  few  years  in  a  distant  province  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  the  company  of  beggars  and  fishermen,  mis- 
understood by  his  own  countrymen,  despised  by  the 
rich,  the  learned,  and  the  mighty  of  this  world,  and  who, 
finally,  died  a  death  of  shame,  has  conquered  the  world? 
This  is  a  proof  which  so  impressed  Napoleon  I  that, 
on  St.  Helena,  he  made  the  confession,  ''J^^us  is  truly 
the  Son  of  God."  In  accordance  with  the  law  of  nature, 
which,  men  of  science  tell  us,  is  eternal  and  unchange- 
able, causa  (Eqiiat  effectum — the  cause  is  equal  to  the  ef- 
fect— the  cause  of  such  a  tremendous  efifect,  Christ  him- 
self, must  have  been  of  extraordinary  greatness. 

Let  some  one  try  and  start  a  crusade  in  the  cause 
of  materialism — say,  on  behalf  of  the  eternity  of  matter 
or  the  evolution  of  the  primal  germ — in  the  same  way, 
and  making  use  of  the  same  weapons  as  Christ,  and 
see  how  he  succeeds. 

Is  it  not  an  historical  and  authentic  fact  that  thou- 
sands of  martyrs  under  torture,  and  millions  of  Chris- 


Science  253 

tians  in  ordinary  circumstances  have  died  and  are  dying 
daily  in  joy  and  confidence,  rejoicing  in  their  faith  in 
their  God  and  Savior,  although  they,  like  other  men,  are 
attached  to  wife  and  child,  earthly  possessions  and  Ufe? 

It  is  therefore  undeniable  that,  with  the  faithful 
acceptance  of  the  gospel,  there  comes  to  man,  or  starts 
to  Hfe  in  him,  a  power  which  was  not  there  before.  It 
was  this  which  so  astonished  the  Roman  pro-consuls 
in  the  tortured  Christians.  One  of  them,  who  had 
failed  to  wring  even  a  sigh  from  a  youth  dying  in  ag- 
ony, exclaimed,  ''We  are  conquered!"  The  presence  of 
a  power  which  can  make  a  drunkard  sober,  vice  virtuous, 
haughtiness  humble,  and  a  thief  honest,  is  an  acknowl- 
edged, undeniable,  and,  therefore,  scientific  fact;  and 
to  explain  away  these  facts  by  the  words  ''madness" 
and  "delusion"  is  to  act,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  most 
unscientifically. 

A  power  is  a  power;  and  those  of  the  spiritual 
world — nay,  they  especially — obey  definite  laws,  do  not 
originate  in  nothing  and  vanish  into  nothing.  Here, 
too,  the  statement  holds  good,  No  efifect  without  a 
cause,  and  no  cause  without  effect;  and  science  must 
here  take  into  account  a  cause  unknown  to  her,  but 
none  the  less  real,  instead  of  contenting  herself  with  a 
contemptuous  negation.  Where  a  force  is  manifest 
in  nature,  we  can  only  bend  to  the  fact;  after  that  we 
are  at  liberty  to  let  it  alone  and  go  our  way,  or  to 
study  the  phenomenon,  the  manner  of  its  appearance, 
and  its  results,  its  cause,  or  causes. 

A  scientific  fact,  say  our  opponents,  must  be  capable 
of  being  called  forth  at  any  time,  and  tested  to  its  genu- 
ineness.    Disregarding  the  merely  partial  truth  of  this 


254  Science  and  Christianity 

assertion,  which  only  holds  good  within  the  sphere  of 
human  experience,  I  ask,  What  right  has  any  one  to 
deny  the  genuineness  and  truth  of  the  facts  experienced 
daily  by  me  and  thousands  of  Christians — the  fact  that, 
in  answer  to  earnest  prayer,  we  receive  comfort  and 
strength,  that  we  could  cite  thousands  of  instances  of 
a  plain  and  often  immediate  granting  of  our  petitions? 
If  the  unbeliever  says  that  he  knows  nothing  of  such 
a  thing,  the  first  question  is,  whether  he  has  ever  made 
the  attempt,  under  all  the  necessary  conditions;  for, 
without  these,  not  even  a  scientific  experiment  succeeds. 
If  he  has  not  done  so,  he  is  incapable  of  judging  whether 
there  is  any  truth  in  the  matter.  And  even  if  he  should 
say  he  had  tried  it  without  any  result,  that  is  no  more  a 
proof  that  I  am  under  a  delusion  than  if  one  suffering 
from  color-blindness  were  to  tell  me  he  had  often  looked 
through  a  prism,  but  had  never  seen  any  of  the  brilliant 
colors  which  I  had  told  him  were  to  be  seen. 

''Blind  belief,"  says  the  blind  unbeliever,  not  know- 
ing that  faith  is  the  clear  beholding  of  a  higher  world. 
Faith  is  intuition,  and  this,  as  daily  experience  and  his- 
tory teach,  is  higher  than  deduction.  But  belief  has 
often  deceived.  Yes,  a  false  belief  and  scientific  proof 
still  more  often.  How  much  that  is  false  and  incor- 
rect, how  much  nonsense,  has  been  and  is  daily  proved 
clearly  and  conclusively !  For,  as  the  old  sophists  knew, 
everything — and  nothing — is  capable  of  proof. 

The  world  of  faith  is  like  the  cloud-world  which 
floats,  beautiful,  soft,  plastic,  intangible,  and  yet  ma- 
terially existent,  high  above  the  hard,  fast-bound  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  sailing  hither  and  thither,  towering  in 
the  light  of  sunset  to  palaces  of  purple  and  gold.    Many 


Science  255 

think  lightly  of  this  airy  fabric;  and  "to  live  in  the 
clouds"  seems  but  a  poor  and  worthless  kind  of  exist- 
ence to  the  man  of  the  world,  engrossed  in  the  stern 
prose  of  the  struggle  for  existence.  But  unless  this 
upper  world  drops  her  gentle,  beneficent  rain  upon  the 
hard,  rough  earth  beneath,  the  arduous  labors  of  the 
husbandman  are  all  in  vain.  Without  these  higher 
forces  we  are  unable  to  live;  we  droop  and  perish.  Let 
them,  however,  break  loose  in  all  their  strength,  let 
the  destroying  lightning-flash  dart  from  the  cloud,  while 
the  thunder-peals  and  the  waters  on  high  gather  them- 
selves together  and  rush  violently  through  wood  and 
field,  sweeping  before  them,  with  irresistible  fury,  man 
and  his  works, — then  even  the  worldly  man  recognizes 
the  presence  of  a  Power  enthroned  high  above  his  com- 
monplace wisdom,  and  fears. 

Only  a  man  spiritually  blind  can  overlook  the  enor- 
mous effects  of  faith  as  a  Divine  and  unbelief  as  a  dia- 
bolical power  in  the  history  of  humanity.  St.  Paul 
describes  the  former  for  us  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans. The  latter  has  been  the  cause  of  the  persecu- 
tions of  Christians  in  all  times,  and  also  of  the  rage 
and  hatred  with  which  materialists  and  anarchists  strive 
to  eradicate  all  belief  at  the  present  day — ^in  itself  a 
tacit  acknowledgment  of  its  power.  Both  belief  and 
unbelief,  surging  and  raging  in  the  hearts  of  men,  have, 
in  all  ages,  inflamed  them  against  one  another;  for 
Christ  said,  ''I  am  not  come  to  send  peace  on  the  earth, 
but  a  sword."  And  to  refer  this  opposition  in  history 
to  the  conflict  between  two  mighty  spiritual  principles 
seems  to  me  a  more  rational  and  scientific  proceeding 
than  to  ascribe  such  great  consequences  to  hallucina- 


2^6  Science  and  Christianity 

tion,  as  the  materialist  does  in  representing  faith  as  a 
delusion,  as  if  such  could  have  the  power  to  agitate 
humanity  and  the  world! 

We  Christians  explain  the  order  of  the  universe 
by  assumptions  which  even  our  opponents  regard  as 
admissible — that,  for  example,  of  a  living  and  personal 
God,  who,  as  causa  causarum,  created  this  universe. 
When  Professor  Haeckel  (Natiirliche  Schopfung,  page 
28)  declares  himself  unable  to  comprehend  "the  ulti- 
mate and  highest  Principle,"  he  admits  the  existence 
of  such  a  thing;  and  it  is  just  this  highest  Principle 
which  we  call  God.  Albert  Lange  says  Professor 
Haeckel  regards  spontaneous  generation  as  a  neces- 
sary hypothesis,  which  is,  however,  not  yet  absolutely 
established.  "If  you  do  not  accept  the  hypothesis  of 
spontaneous  generation,"  he  writes,  "you  must  take 
refuge  in  the  miracle  of  a  supernatural  creation."  (Die 
Naturwissenschaften.)  As  it  now  happens  that  Pas- 
teur and  others  have  finally  disposed  of  the  theory  of 
spontaneous  generation,  we  follow  the  advice  given,  and 
are  acting  in  accordance  with  strict  science  in  accept- 
ing the  dogma  of  a  supernatural  creation. 

We  maintain  further  that,  at  one  time  and  from  one 
cause  or  another,  a  separation  took  place  between  cre- 
ation and  Creator,  and  that  our  spiritual  life  has  be- 
come, in  consequence  of  this  separation,  turbid  and  ob- 
scure, hindering  us  from  recognizing  the  origin  of 
creation  outside  and  inside  ourselves  on  the  one  hand; 
on  the  other,  overshadowing  our  whole  life  with  the 
consciousness  of  something  not  as  it  ought  to  be.  Phi- 
losophy arrives  at  the  recognition  of  this  truth  by  its 
own  unaided  light.     Buddha  says:  "This  is  Sansara; 


Science  257 

it  is  the  world  of  birth,  of  sickness,  of  old  age  and  death; 
it  is  the  world  which  ought  not  to  be;"  and  Schopen- 
hauer, who,  in  general,  ridicules  the  Bible,  confesses, 
"The  story  of  the  Fall  is  the  only  thing  which  recon- 
ciles me  to  the  Old  Testament;  for  our  existence  resem- 
bles nothing  so  much  as  the  consequence  of  a  false 
step  and  a  punishable  lust." 

We  put  forth  the  dogma  of  sin  pursued  by  a  Di- 
vine Nemesis  as  the  principal  cause  of  the  misery  of 
human  life,  of  which  old  Homer  sang,  "There  is  nothing 
more  miserable  upon  the  earth  than  man  of  all  that 
breathes  and  moves."  In  this  view  we  have  the  sup- 
port of  the  great  tragic  poets  of  all  ages,  who  look 
deeply  into  man's  nature  and  man's  life.  They  con- 
fess, one  and  all,  "Life  is  not  the  greatest  good;  but  the 
greatest  of  all  evils  is  sin." 

The  dread  and  anxiety,  of  which  Schelling  says, 
"Anxiety  is  the  fundamental  feeling  of  every  living 
creature,"  we  attribute  to  the  existence  of  an  evil  Power, 
which  is  forever  threatening  us  with  destruction,  who 
goes  about  "like  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour."  The  materialist,  on  his  side,  is  unable  to  urge 
any  ground  for  this  feeling  of  dread. 

The  wonderful  fitness  and  utility,  the  adaptation  to 
purpose  of  the  universe,  which  is  even  acknowledged 
by  some  materialists,  we  explain  by  the  creation  and 
rule  of  a  beneficent,  all-wise  God,  with  a  purpose  in 
all  he  does.  Is  not  this  doctrine  more  natural,  more 
satisfactory,  more  in  accordance  with  facts,  and,  con- 
sequently, more  scientific,  than  Spiller's  explanation  of 
it  as  the  action  of  an  unconscious  and  yet  wise,  just, 
and  infallible  universal  ether? 
17 


258  Science  and  Christianity 

As  regards  death,  of  which  the  ancient  Greek  said, 
"The  most  terrible  thing  in  the  world  is  death,"  and 
which  science  is  unable  to  account  for,  we  say  with 
the  Bible,  "Death  is  the  wages  of  sin,  but  everlasting 
Hfe  is  the  gift  of  God."  In  this  we  are  in  agreement 
with  the  view  of  all  nations,  and  once  more  it  is  cor- 
roborated by  Schopenhauer,  who  writes,  "That  our  life 
itself  implies  a  transgression  is  proved  by  death,"  and 
adds,  "Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  great  and 
manifold  sufferings  of  the  world  are  the  consequence 
of  the  world's  exceeding  guilt." 

What  right,  then,  has  the  world  to  accuse  us  of 
beheving  without  knowing,  and  to  boast  of  knowing, 
but  not  believing,  though  it  does  not  know  how  the 
grass  grows?  As  science  sets  up  the  dogmas  of  the 
mathematical  axioms,  of  the  atom,  of  vital  force,  in 
explanation  of  the  forms  of  bodies,  their  properties, 
and  their  manifestations,  we  set  up,  in  explanation  of 
facts  as  undeniable,  as  historical  and  authentic,  and 
otherwise  inexplicable,  the  facts  of  repentance  and  re- 
morse, of  the  fear  of  death,  and  the  necessity  of  redemp- 
tion, of  answers  to  prayer  and  a  happy  death,  the  dog- 
mas of  a  holy  God,  of  sin,  of  a  Savior,  Jesus  Christ, 
of  redemption  by  his  death,  and  of  eternal  bliss.  Thou- 
sands of  earnest,  clever,  gifted  souls,  like  the  above- 
mentioned  men  of  science,  like  Augustine,  Calvin, 
Luther,  and  so  many  others,  have  testified,  and  are 
still  testifying,  that  they  have  found,  after  a  lifelong 
trial  of  them,  that  these  dogmas  alone  satisfactorily 
explain  the  universe,  life,  and  humanity.  Many,  in- 
deed, have  sealed  their  conviction  with  their  blood. 

Or  are  we  Christians  alone  not  justified  in  making 


Science  259 

the  inexplicable  the  basis  of  our  views?  Are  we  not 
rather  bound,  according  to  the  strict  method  of  science, 
to  hold  to  this  hypothesis,  as  our  opponents  call  it, 
till  they  provide  us  with  a  better  explanation  of  exist- 
ing things? 

How  little  able  they  are,  however,  to  do  this !  How 
little  satisfactory  their  reading  of  the  world-questions, 
even  scientifically  considered!  How  halting  and  un- 
certain their  conclusions!  And  how  much  blind  faith 
they  demand!  How  unfruitful  their  doctrines  have 
been  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  history  of  na- 
tions we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 

Materialism 

WE  will  now  pass  from  science  to  that  view  of  ex- 
istence and  the  universe  originally  taught  by 
Democritus,  and  now  so  common  in  certain  circles 
under  the  name  of  ''materialism" — a  system  which  some 
wrongly  believe  to  be  real  science. 

Materialism  maintains  that  the  only  thing  which 
exists  is  eternal,  indestructible  matter,  with  its  mani- 
festations or  forces,  and  that  the  highest  phenomena 
of  life  are  only  such  manifestations  of  matter.  The 
universe  is,  according  to  this  theory,  nothing  but  the 
motion  of  atoms,  all  knowledge  only  the  understand- 
ing of  this  mechanism  of  atoms.  Matter,  they  say, 
explains  itself,  and  also  all  the  phenomena  falsely 
ascribed  to  spiritual  agency;  consequently  the  assump- 
tion of  the  spirit  is  superfluous,  and,  like  everything 
which  is  superfluous,  injurious.  A  position  which  is 
certainly  alluring  in  its  simplicity!  But  whether  it  is 
in  agreement  with  the  world  of  facts;  whether  matter 
explains  itself,  or  does  not  rather  point  to  something 
beyond  and  outside  itself,  even  in  the  animal,  as  in  pain 
and  in  maternal  love;  whether  it  explains  the  whole  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  life  of  man  and  mankind,  with 
their  poetry  and  their  yearnings,  their  achievements 
and  their  aspirations,  is  what  we  will  now  take  as  our 
subject  of  consideration. 

a6o 


Materialism  261 

If  we  look  at  this  opinion,  as  propounded  by  Biich- 
ner,  Vogt,  Huxley,  Moleschott,  Spiller,  Haeckel,  Hart- 
mann,  and  many  others,  we  soon  recognize  that  here 
we  have  not  to  do  with  pure  science,  which  concerns 
itself  only  with  data,  with  the  unprejudiced  observation 
of  nature  within  the  Hmits  defined  by  Dubois-Reymond, 
but  with  a  mixture  of  science  and  speculation,  with  a 
system  which  we  might  call  the  religion  of  unbelief,  as 
recently  published  by  two  representatives  of  the  doc- 
trine under  the  title,  ''Confession  of  Faith  of  a  Mod- 
ern Man  of  Science." 

Strange  to  say,  the  chief  article  of  these  opponents 
of  all  religion  is  a  negatively  religious  proposition,  "I 
believe  that  there  is  no  God."  This  assertion  is  no 
scientific  dogma,  because  unproved  and  unprovable  by 
any  fact  in  the  universe.  One  would  need  to  search 
long  in  chemistry  and  geology,  in  astronomy  and 
zoology,  in  spectrum  analysis  and  in  micrography, 
would  need  to  study  creation  through  telescope  and 
microscope  to  all  time,  before  one  found  a  fact,  a  form 
or  phenomenon  of  matter — and  the  materialist  believes 
only  in  matter — which  could  prove  that  there  is  no 
God.  What  would  be  the  nature  of  such  a  fact?  How 
is  it  possible  for  the  positive  and  absolute  to  explain 
by  its  existence  the  non-existence  of  something  inde- 
pendent of  it?  It  would  be  remarkable  that  so  many 
clear-sighted  students  of  nature  should  never  have  un- 
earthed such  a  fact  or  facts,  and  it  is  still  more  remark- 
able that  no  materialist  can  cite  any  definite  fact  in 
science  in  proof  of  the  above  assertion. 

We  will  not  go  into  the  numerous  utterances  of 
great  and  wise  men  who  have,  in  all  times,  acknowl- 


262  Science  and  Christianity 

edged,  like  Humboldt,  "that  history  is  not  intelligible 
without  the  idea  of  a  Higher  Governing  Power,"  but 
content  ourselves  with  maintaining  that  the  proposition, 
There  is  no  God,  is  incapable  of  being  scientifically 
proved. 

But  because  deep  in  the  human  soul  is  inscribed 
the  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  worship,"  materialism 
sets  up  a  dead  god  in  the  place  of  the  living  God  of  the 
Bible,  and  says,  "I  believe  in  eternal  matter,  from  which 
all  forces  proceed,  which  has  of  itself  created  all  things, 
which  knows  nothing,  and  yet  comprises  in  itself  all 
knowledge."  And  with  the  same  intolerance  and  dog- 
matic assumption  of  infallibility  with  which  the  ma- 
terialist reproaches  Christians  he  demands  absolute  and 
unconditional  belief  in  his  idol.  Let  us  hear  what 
Spiller,  whom  Dr.  Miiller  designates  "one  of  the  great- 
est natural  philosophers  of  all  time,"  has  to  say  about 
his  god,  the  primordial  substance  which  he  calls  "uni- 
versal ether"  (the  italics  are  Spiller's) :  "God  is  an  in- 
finite, eternal — i.  e.,  uncreated  and  indestructible — 
material  substance,  namely,  the  universal  ether.  This  is 
the  Creator  of  heaven — i.  e.,  the  heavenly  bodies — and 
the  earth.  It  also  created  us  men;  it  governs  the  whole 
world;  it  is  eternal;  it  is  all-zvise;  it  is  just;  it  never  errs, 
and  is  alone  infallible  because  it  acts  without  self-con- 
sciousness and  zvithout  any  -fixed  ptirpose''  (Gott  im  Lichte 
der  Naturwissenschaften,  p.  120);  and  on  page  84  he 
declares,  *'The  soul  is  the  reciprocal  action  of  the  atoms 
of  organic  bodies  and  the  universal  ether.''  This  is  simply 
laid  down  as  a  statement.  At  the  same  time  Spiller 
expresses  the  hope  that,  with  the  discovery  of  this  uni- 
versal ether,  he  has  "knocked  the  ground  from  under 


Materialism  263 

the  priests'  feet,"  and  abuses  other  materiaUsts  who 
make  coarse,  visible  matter  the  all-father.  BiAchner's 
assertion,  ''Matter  is  the  mother  who  bears  all,  and 
draws  all  back  to  herself,"  is  to  him  a  materialism  not 
to  be  entertained  (p.  67);  and  he  says,  ''When  Diderot 
talks  of  matter  thinking,  one's  thoughts  fail."  (Das 
Leben,  p.  21.)  He  makes  merry  over  Hartmann's 
^'Unconscious  One,"  a  truly  inconceivable  notion,  "the 
material  spirit  not  yet  conscious  of  itself,  whose  sole  aim 
it  is  to  attain  to  consciousness,"  calling  it  "a  vague 
image  of  the  fancy,"  and  crying  to  it,  "Material  spirit, 
take  off  thy  mask!"  (Das  Leben,  p.  11.)  Hartmann 
writes  of  his  idol,  "The  Unconscious  One,"  almost 
identically  (the  italics  are  his):  ''The  Unconscious  One  is 
never  weary.  He  does  not  waver  nor  doubt,  requires  no 
time  for  consideration,  and  never  errs.  He  possesses  no 
memory;  yet  in  him  will  and  idea  are  hound  up  in  indis- 
soluble unity.  ( !)  The  Unconscious  One  is  almighty,  all- 
present,  all-knowing,  and  all-wise."  (Philosophic  des 
Unbewussten,  Part  HI,  pp.  310-316.)  Here  we  have 
dogmas  against  dogmas! 

There  is  one  point,  however,  on  which  these  men 
are  agreed,  and  that  is  that  the  Christian  dogma  of  a 
living  God,  from  whom  all  life  is  derived,  who  created, 
with  clear  consciousness  of  himself  and  his  design,  the 
tmiverse  for  a  particular  purpose,  and  is  carrying  it 
forward  to  a  predetermined  destination,  is  altogether 
untenable. 

Besides,  the  dogma  of  the  absolute  justice  and  ab- 
solute wisdom  of  the  universal  ether — the  unconscious 
one,  or  eternal  matter,  whichever  they  are  pleased  to 
call  it — contradicts  the  other  dogma  of  the  materialist, 


264  Science  and  Christianity 

that  there  Is  no  future  award  of  recompense  and  punish- 
ment; for  even  they  will  not  deny  that  very  often  in 
this  world  virtue  does  not  meet  with  its  reward,  nor 
vice  with  its  punishment.  If,  then,  there  is  no  justice 
in  a  future  world,  the  universal  ether  is  unjust. 

The  materialistic  belief  in  the  eternity  of  matter  is 
as  unscientific  as  the  first  position  of  the  non-existence 
of  God.  Not  only  can  it  be  neither  proved  nor  grasped, 
but  it  stands  in  contradiction  to  our  direct  impressions 
and  to  the  logic  of  facts.  The  universe,  like  a  growing 
child  or  an  unfolding  plant,  bears  the  stamp  of  incom- 
pleteness, of  youth,  of  growth,  of  an  evident  striving 
after  a  goal  not  yet  attained.  The  materialist  himself 
teaches  that,  according  to  the  hypothesis  of  Herschel, 
Laplace,  and  Kant,  millions  of  years  ago,  all  matter 
was  uniformly  diffused  in  an  intensely  rarified  state, 
and  that,  in  the  thousands  of  nebulae,  whose  light  takes 
perhaps  millions  of  years  to  reach  us,  we  may  see  the 
primary  germ-state  of  the  universe.  How  does  this 
idea  of  a  primordial  condition  fit  in  with  the  eternity 
of  matter?  The  materialist  tells  us,  too,  that  man,  in 
the  course  of  comparatively  few  centuries,  has  devel- 
oped from  an  animal,  and  that  the  earth  is  a  relatively 
new  body,  still  undergoing  a  period  of  evolution.  Do 
not  the  ideas  of  eternal  existence  and  evolution  mutually 
exclude  one  another?  If  we  were  told  that  a  certain 
child  was  growing  daily,  and  had  been  doing  so  from 
all  eternity,  the  first  thing  we  should  ask  would  be, 
"Why,  then,  is  it  not  yet  full-grown?"  If  we  have  been 
developing  from  all  eternity,  why  are  we  not  yet  fully 
developed?  If  matter  is  eternal,  all  possible  forms  and 
manifestations   of  matter   must    have   been    exhausted 


Materialism  265 

millions  of  aeons  ago.  All  forms  of  existence  must 
have  been  repeated  infinitely  often,  and  I  must  have 
sat  an  infinite  number  of  times  at  the  same  table,  writ- 
ing and  thinking  the  same  things;  for  though  we  can 
think  of  matter  as  infinite  in  quantity,  it  can,  according 
to  the  laws  of  nature,  have  only  a  certain  number  of 
qualities,  and  can,  therefore,  only  occur  under  a  lim- 
ited number  of  forms.  This  endless  and  purposeless 
repetition,  which  is  the  logical  outcome  of  the  belief  in 
the  eternity  of  matter,  is  contradicted  by  facts.  What 
we  call  life  is  the  play  of  forces  constantly  striving  for 
balance.  This  equalizing  process  is  constantly  taking 
place;  for  instance,  when  a  hundred  million  suns  pour 
out  incessantly  into  ice-cold  space  a  heat  which  never 
returns  to  them.  Why,  if  that  has  been  going  on 
throughout  eternal  ages,  is  space  not  yet  warmed 
through;  and  why  have  not  all  phenomena  of  heat  long 
ago  ceased? 

The  materialistic  dogma  of  the  ''entropy"  or  ulti- 
mate death  of  the  universe  contradicts  the  eternity  of 
matter,  for  this  entropy  ought  to  have  long  since  oc- 
curred; and  when  it  has  once  taken  place,  it  is  impos- 
sible, according  to  the  law  of  the  inertia  of  bodies,  that 
matter  should  of  itself  pass  from  a  state  of  rest  and 
equilibrium  into  that  of  motion. 

It  is  true,  some  cosmologists  tell  us  that  eventually 
suns  falling  one  into  the  other  will,  by  the  conversion 
into  heat  of  the  force  of  their  impact  combine  to  form 
a  dazzling,  glowing  nebula,  a  cosmic  gas,  and  thus  re- 
store the  original  heat,  whereupon  the  world-forming 
process  can  begin  anew  from  the  beginning. 

These  are,  however,  false  conclusions.     No  doubt, 


266  Science  and  Christianity 

one  principal  source  of  heat  is  the  combination  of  masses 
of  matter.  It  is  doubtful  whether  it  is  the  only  one. 
But  if  we  suppose  that  the  moons  will  fall  into  their 
planets,  the  planets  into  their  suns,  and  these  suns 
into  others,  we  must  conceive  of  it,  not  as  happening 
at  one  stroke,  but  in  succession.  Mercury  would  fall  first 
into  the  sun,  and  would  feed  this  furnace  for  six  years 
and  two  hundred  and  nineteen  days  (W.  Thomson); 
but  at  the  end  of  this  time  this  heat  would  have  been 
dissipated  by  radiation  into  space  without  raising  its 
temperature  one  thousand  millionth  of  a  degree.  Then 
comes  Venus,  which  would  sustain  the  heat  of  the  sun 
S^  years,  326  days;  then  the  earth,  sufficient  for  95 
years,  19  days;  Jupiter  would  provide  for  32,254  years, 
and  so  on.  The  fall  of  all  the  planets  would  maintain 
the  sun's  heat  for  not  more  than  45,600  years.  But 
between  each  fall  the  sun  would  give  out  far  more  heat 
than  he  received;  so  that,  to  continue  the  thought,  the 
heat  generated  in  that  w^ay  would  be  constantly  disap- 
pearing in  space,  and,  when,  finally,  after  the  consump- 
tion of  their  moons  and  planets,  the  suns,  having  by 
this  time  approached  each  other  very  nearly,  fall  into 
one  another.  The  greater  part  of  the  heat-capital  nec- 
essary to  the  formation  of  new  worlds  will  have  long 
been  exhausted  and  as  good  as  lost.  After  a  short  fire- 
work display  produced  by  the  conflagration  of  several 
millions  of  suns — which,  however,  does  not  exclude  the 
possibility  of  the  formation,  in  the  meantime,  of  smaller 
nebulae  having  the  same  issue,  the  whole  of  universal 
space  will  congeal  to  everlasting  rest  at  a  temperature, 
not  of  — 273°  C,  as  Spiller  holds,  but  of  barely  — 150°. 
If  this  is  the  logically  scientific  end  of  the  universe,  we 


Materialism  267 

ask  again,  "Why  has  not  matter  long  ago  died  this 
natural  death?" 

The  celebrated  astronomer,  Secchi,  speaks  in  the 
same  way:  "We  have  here  to  do  with  a  space  of  time 
by  no  means  unlimited.  Were  it  so,  the  activity  of  the 
world  would  have  long  since  been  extinguished.  The 
cause  of  changes  is  the  difference  of  energy  in  the  differ- 
ent regions.  And  as  this  energy  is  continually  striving 
to  equalize  itself,  if  an  unlimited  time  had  already 
elapsed,  universal  equilibrium  would  long  ago  have 
set  in  and  made  every  phenomenon  impossible."  (Die 
Sterne,  p.  335.)  The  truth  of  this  is  admitted  even  by 
Hartmann:  "It  would  not  be  in  accordance  with  the 
idea  of  evolution  to  ascribe  to  the  world-process  an 
infinite  duration  in  the  past;  for  then  every  conceiveable 
stage  of  development  would  already  have  been  passed 
through,  which  is  certainly  not  the  case;  and  just  as 
Httle  can  we  predict  for  it  an  endless  duration  in  the 
future,  for  in  that  case  there  would  be  an  end  to  the 
notion  of  a  goal  of  this  development,  and  the  world- 
process  would  resemble  the  sieve  of  the  Danaides." 
(Philosophie  des  Unbewussten,  p.  747.) 

Thus  many  materialists  admit  that  the  universe  is 
the  result  of  a  process  in  time,  and  that  the  present 
condition  of  matter  and  force  must  have  had  a  begin- 
ning, and  may  be  expected  to  have  an  end.  That,  how- 
ever, is  simply  the  Bible  doctrine;  and  the  position,  "In 
the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth," 
is  more  scientific,  because  more  in  accord  with  the  uni- 
verse as  we  know  it  than  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity 
of  matter.  This  God  is  to  us  Christians  the  Center 
from  which  the  forces  of  the  universe  eternally  proceed 


268  Science  and  Christianity 

and  are  hourly  exerted.  He  is  the  Perpetuum  Mobile 
of  the  universe,  for  which  reason  we  have  no  fear  of 
the  setting-in  of  an  equilibrium  of  all  energies  and  the 
consequent  death  of  the  universe. 

To  be  logical,  the  materialist  ought  to  tell  us,  be- 
fore he  lays  down  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  matter, 
what  matter  is,  this  wonderful,  well-known,  and  yet  un- 
known something,  his  one  and  all,  according  to  him  the 
only  entity.  But  he  can  not  tell  us  because  he  knows  no 
more  about  it  than  we  non-materialists.  His  altars, 
like  those  of  the  Athenians,  are  erected  to  ''the  Un- 
known God."  Some  men  of  science  substitute  for  the 
idea  of  matter  that  of  energy,  and  think  "to  possess 
in  the  idea  of  energy  all  that  is  necessary  to  the  compre- 
hension of  things."  (?)  Man  can  not,  however,  dis- 
pense with  the  notion  of  matter  as  long  as  he  lives  on 
earth.  He  can  not  see  and  grasp  energy,  only  matter; 
and  again  and  again  he  asks.  What  is  this  matter?  We 
have  seen  that  on  this  point  Dubois-Reymond  utters 
his  Ignoramus  as  the  sum-total  of  human  knowledge. 

To  go  further  into  the  materialists'  "Confession  of 
Faith."  The  next  article  runs  thus,  "I  believe  in  the 
eternity  of  forces  or  force."  The  materialist,  however, 
confesses,  and  every  student  of  nature  must  admit,  that 
we  do  not  know  the  nature  of  force  or  forces,  nor 
whether  they  are  inherent  properties  of  matter  or  not. 
Spiller  says,  "My  standpoint  is  not  the  false  one  of 
Moleschott,  Buchner,  and  others,  who  hold  that  ordi- 
nary matter  bears  in  itself  the  principle  of  force  and 
motion."  (Das  Leben,  p.  40.)  Elsewhere  he  says: 
**When  Spinoza  assumes  the  inseparable  unity  of  mat- 
ter and  force,  he  is  under  a  mistake.     Deeper  investi- 


Materialism  269 

gation  shows  that  force  does  not  originally  exist  in  mat- 
ter as  an  inherent  property."  What  is  force,  then? 
Dubois-Reymond,  as  we  have  seen,  believes  that  is  one 
of  the  things  we  shall  never  know  on  earth.  He  even 
thinks  it  possible  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  force 
or  matter,  but  that  they  are  only  abstractions.  Schleiden 
writes :  "Force  and  matter  are  nothing  but  the  product 
of  our  senses;  in  themselves  they  do  not  exist."  (!) 
(Das  Meer,  p.  117.)  And  Hartmann  exclaims,  "Mat- 
ter is  a  chimera !"  How  can  one  say  of  a  thing,  whose 
nature  is  unknown,  of  an  abstraction  which  exists  only 
as  an  idea  in  my  brain,  or  through  my  senses,  that  it 
is  eternal?  It  is  true,  we  see  how,  on  earth  and,  in  all 
probability,  throughout  space,  force  is  indestructible; 
but  that  may  only  hold  good  during  the  existence  of 
the  present  universe,  and  not  for  eternity.  It  is  really 
laughable  to  think  of  creatures  who  are  here  only  for 
a  second  in  space,  a  nothing  of  eternity,  maintaining 
boldly  and  presumptuously.  Matter  is  eternal;  force  is 
eternal.  How  can  we  know?  Whence  can  we  know? 
What  do  we  ephemeral  beings  know  of  eternity,  that 
something  which  our  minds  are  powerless  to  grasp? 
To  admit  the  Infinite  into  our  calculations  is  to  quit 
science  for  metaphysics.  Then  everything  becomes 
possible,  and  a  microbe  devours  the  universe! 

This  dogma  of  the  eternity  of  force  has  also  no 
scientific  foundation,  and  is,  in  reality,  a  convenient 
refuge,  a  cushion  for  the  head  weary  of  thinking.  If 
one  can  not  find  a  beginning,  or  believe,  or  understand, 
the  simplest  thing  is  to  say,  "It  is  eternal,"  and  rest 
content  with  that. 

Just  as  unproved  are  the  teachings  of  the  material- 


270  Science  and  Christianity 

ists  as  to  the  origin  of  life.  Their  answers  to  the  ques- 
tion, "What  is  life?"  are  highly  unsatisfactory.  "L/ife, 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,"  says  Spiller,  "is  mo- 
tion or  change  of  place."  A  broad  definition  in  truth! 
For  Professor  Haeckel  vital  force  is  "the  simple  causal 
law"  or  "the  direct  action  of  the  existent  substance  of 
the  individual."  Does  any  one  understand  him?  Ber- 
nard (speech  at  Chicago,  1874)  says:  "The  vital  prin- 
ciple is  the  something  which  makes  plants  grow."  Sim- 
ple, but  not  exactly  an  explanation!  Hartmann  con- 
siders it  necessary  for  vital  development  that  "the 
metaphysical  subject  of  the  plan  of  evolution  is  itself 
immanent  in  the  process  as  instrument  of  the  intentional 
development  according  to  fixed  laws."  To  Schopen- 
hauer all  life  is  only  "will."  Whose?  When  Herbert 
Spencer  defines  life  as  "a  continuous  adjustment  of 
internal  relations  to  external  relations,"  we  might  reply 
that  it  consists  much  more  in  a  struggle  against  these 
relations  and  a  continual  overcoming  of  them.  We  all 
feel  that  life  is  neither  a  mere  adjustment  nor  a  mere 
struggle,  but  an  individual,  and,  according  as  each  one 
conceives  of  it,  an  individualizing  force.  When,  in 
Natur  (February  3,  1895),  the  question,  "What  is  life?" 
is  answered,  in  agreement  with  Spiller,  as  follows,  "The 
observer  who  stands  on  the  highest  step  of  science  will 
at  once  answer.  Life  is  nothing  but  motion,"  remarking 
further  that  natural  science  has  had  to  travel  far  in 
order  to  be  able  to  give  this  answer,  we  can  only  regret 
that  it  should  have  traveled  to  no  purpose;  for  life  is 
no  more  mere  motion  than  motion  in  itself  is  life.  A 
dynamo  which,  full  of  force,  heat,  and  electricity,  emit- 
ting sparks,  rotates  many  hundred  times  in  a  minute,  is, 


Materialism  271 

for  all  that,  dead;  the  tiny  black  seed,  which  has  lain 
all  winter  on  my  window-sill,  motionless  and  apparently 
dead,  is  alive. 

Not  so  very  many  years  ago  almost  all  physiologists 
and  men  of  science  held  that  the  supposition  of  a  vital 
force  was  unnecessary,  maintaining  that  the  forces  act- 
ing in  organisms  were  the  same  as  those  of  inanimate 
nature.  Since  then,  however,  the  pendulum  has  swung 
back,  and  vitalism  has  once  more  come  to  the  front. 
Schopenhauer  had  already  written,  "He  who  denies  the 
existence  of  a  vital  force  denies  his  own  existence,  and 
may  congratulate  himself  on  having  reached  the  acme 
of  absurdity."  Professor  Carriere  says,  very  much  to 
the  point,  "Robert  Mayer's  discovery  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  does  not  hold  good  for  the  animate 
world,  where  the  organic  or  vital  force  and  the  spiritual 
force  are  the  sources  of  energy."  "The  more  minute, 
many-sided,  and  thorough  our  investigations  of  the 
phenomena  of  life  are,  the  more  we  are  forced  to  the 
opinion  that  processes  which  we  have  hitherto  thought 
to  explain  physically  and  chemically  are  of  far  more 
complex  nature,  and,  for  the  present,  defy  all  elucida- 
tion." And,  in  truth,  capillarity  and  endosmose  do  not 
explain  the  absorption  of  nutriment  by  plants,  nor  their 
power  of  distinguishing  the  harmful  from  the  beneficial, 
nor  their  elaboration  of  the  latter  to  wonderful  prod- 
ucts of  various  kinds,  nor  the  transformation  of  leaves 
into  flowers  of  certain  colors.  Why  is  the  rose  red  and 
the  cornflower  blue?  There  lie  two  grains  of  wheat. 
The  one  is  capable  of  germination,  is  therefore  living; 
the  other  Is  no  longer  so,  is  therefore  dead.  Where 
is  the  physical  or  chemical  or  other  difference  between 


272  Science  and  Christianity 

them?  Who  saw,  weighed,  or  measured  the  vital  prin- 
ciple, the  tiny  soul,  as  it  fled  from  the  one?  The  much- 
vaunted  chemical  synthesis  of  many  organic  substances 
— madder,  for  example — is  not  all  that  could  be  de- 
sired. In  1893,  at  the  Congress  of  Painters  in  Munich, 
the  cultivation  of  madder  was  advocated,  that  a  good 
color  might  be  obtained;  for  that  artificially  made  was 
not  durable.  The  latter  is,  then,  not  exactly  the  same 
as  the  natural  product,  however  well  the  chemical  for- 
mula may  correspond.  The  most  wonderful  and  in- 
explicable point  in  nature  is,  perhaps,  the  transmission 
of  quahty  through  the  seed.  The  bean,  for  instance, 
preserves  the  tendency  to  climb  from  right  to  left,  while 
the  hop  turns  from  left  to  right. 

If  we  inquire  of  the  materialist,  ^'Whence  comes  or- 
ganic life?" — although  Liebig,  Pasteur,  and  Tyndall 
have,  by  oft-repeated  and  careful  experiments,  finally 
banished  the  theory  of  spontaneous  generation  from 
science — he  will  nevertheless  require  us  to  believe  that 
it  once  took  place  on  earth,  and  that  organisms  origi- 
nated through  an  accidental  combination  of  inorganic 
substances — an  idea  which  is  at  variance  with  all  scien- 
tific fact,  and  which,  as  Darwin  admits,  has  never  been 
observed — nothing  less  than  a  miracle  in  fact.  We  saw 
in  the  last  chapter  how  Professor  Haeckel  speaks  of 
the  "as  yet  unproved"  theory  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion as  absolutely  necessary  ''if  zve  do  not  wish  to  see 
ourselves  forced  to  the  assumption  of  a  supernatural  cre- 
ation." The  materialist,  then,  can  only  save  his  non- 
belief  in  God  by  the  belief  in  something  which  is  un- 
proved, and  which  science  has  proved  to  be  impossible. 
The  materialist,  Biichner,  teaches  that  ''the  cell  bears 


Materialism  273 

the  origin  and  principle  of  its  life  in  itself;"  and  the 
equally  eminent  materialist,  Spiller,  retorts,  "That  is 
incorrect,  because  a  force  is  not  capable  of  self-genera- 
tion." (Das  Leben,  p.  55.)  Sir  William  Thomson 
(Lord  Kelvin)  is  of  the  opinion  that  an  act  of  creation 
on  the  earth  is  not  necessary;  for  life-germs  may  quite 
well  have  fallen  on  the  earth  from  other  worlds.  As  if 
the  question  were  thus  disposed  of!  How  did  they 
originate  on  those  other  worlds?  And  why  do  not  germs 
of  new  and  wonderful  organisms  still  fall  upon  the 
earth  from  other  spheres?  Spiller — we  prefer  to  let 
our  opponents  answer  one  another — says  on  this  sub- 
ject: "The  dust  of  infusoria  can  not  be  transported 
from  one  world  to  another.  Meteorites  could  not  carry 
organic  life  because  they  are  in  a  glowing  state  in  the 
atmosphere.  If  a  planting  of  the  earth  with  organisms 
had  been  effected  by  means  of  meteorites,  it  would  have 
occurred  only  here  and  there,  at  various  centers,  which 
is  in  opposition  to  all  known  facts."  (Das  Leben, 
p.  27.)  Others  are  of  opinion  that  the  germs  were  con- 
tained, like  all  life,  in  the  primitive  nebulosity  under  the 
form  of  hydrogen  atoms.  Tyndall,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  believes  that  feeling,  reason,  will,  in  all  their  mani- 
festations, "were  once  latent  in  a  fiery  cloud."  And 
Zacharias,  too,  is  inclined  to  place  "the  origin  of  life 
in  the  womb  of  the  primal  nebula  in  space."  The  how 
of  this  theory  transcends  imagination.  Others  beHeve 
that  these  germs  endured  without  suffering  destruction 
the  2,000°  of  heat  on  earth  during  the  molten-granite 
period.  Others,  again,  maintain  that  the  extreme  cold 
of  cosmic  space  kept  them  alive  in  a  frozen  condition. 
But  whence  they  came  they  do  not  tell  us.     Fechner 


274  Science  and  Christianity 

writes,  "Organisms  did  not  originate  in  a  protoplasm, 
but  in  a  mighty  being  of  most  complex  structure,  which 
was  split  up  into  a  great  variety  of  different  creatures, 
the  first  parents  of  the  present  species."  (Spiller:  Das 
Leben,  p.  49.)  A  return  to  the  Scandinavian  giant, 
Ymir!    Extremes  meet! 

The  materialist  can  only  set  up  unproved  and  un- 
provable theories  as  to  how  thought  and  consciousness 
were  evolved  from  organic  life.  Hartmann  conceives 
consciousness,  the  presence  of  spirit  in  matter,  as  "sl 
stupefaction  of  the  unconscious  will  in  regard  to  the 
existence  of  ideas  present,  independent  of  that  will." 
Let  him  comprehend  who  can!  Vogt  and  others  be- 
lieve that  thoughts  are  a  secretion  of  the  brain — sub- 
stance— although  thought  does  not  possess  one  quality 
in  common  with  matter;  therefore  such  a  generation 
of  thought  is  in  opposition  to  the  laws  of  chemistry. 
Liebig  writes  on  the  subject:  ''These  children  in  the 
understanding  of  nature's  laws  maintain,  and  wish  to 
make  a  skeptical  yet  credulous  public  believe,  that  they 
are  able  to  give  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  thought, 
of  the  nature  and  essence  of  the  human  spirit.  The 
spiritual  part  of  man,  they  say,  is  the  product  of  his 
senses.  The  brain  produces  thought  by  material 
changes,  and  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  them  as 
the  liver  to  the  gall.  If  we  divest  the  conclusions  of 
these  persons  of  their  borrowed  tinsel,  of  their  apparent 
proofs,  all  that  remains  are  the  facts  that  our  legs  are 
given  us  to  walk  with,  and  our  brain  to  think  with,  and 
that  we  can  not  walk  without  legs  nor  think  without 
brains.  The  flesh  and  the  bones,  however,  do  not  move 
themselves,  but  are  moved  by  a  cause  which  is  not  flesh 


Materialism  275 

or  bone.  These  are  only  the  instruments  of  force.  The 
brain  is  the  agent  of  the  cause  which  produces  thought." 
(Chemische  Briefe,  p.  369.) 

Farther  than  this  the  modern  biologists  and  physi- 
ologists— Huxley,  Claude  Bernhard,  Bichat,  Virchow, 
and  others — with  all  their  scientific  knowledge,  experi- 
ments, and  vivisection,  have  not  been  able  to  get.  What 
life  is,  why  and  how  the  muscle  produces  force,  the 
nerve  feels,  and  the  brain  thinks,  and  how  and  why 
cells  so  similar  develop  energies  so  difficult,  are  still 
mysteries.  An  article  by  an  authority  on  the  subject 
in  a  scientific  journal,  after  touching  on  the  labors  of 
Golgi,  von  Kollicker,  Retzius,  Waldeyer,  Forel  of 
Zurich,  and  others,  and  on  the  theory  of  nerve-centers 
and  physiological  unities,  goes  on  to  say:  "We  are  still 
in  the  dark  as  to  the  course  of  mental  processes  in  the 
brain.  We  are  acquainted  with  certain  special  functions 
of  the  brain  which  are  connected  with  certain  centers  of 
the  brain-mass — e.  g.,  the  seat  of  the  faculties  of 
speech,  sight,  etc.  But  the  means  of  conduction  are 
not  clear  to  our  sight,  and  the  way  in  which  the  ordi- 
nary processes  of  the  thinking  organ,  the  sensations 
and  thoughts,  are  carried  on,  is  entirely  unknown  to  us." 

It  is  a  curious  fact  in  connection  with  the  brain  that, 
while  a  slight  injury  to  the  surface  will  cause  serious 
disturbances  in  the  entire  organism  (apoplexy,  etc.),  a 
severe  wound  or  other  internal  failing  may  often  exist 
for  years  without  any  ill  efifect  on  the  activity  of  the 
brain.  Celebrated  psychologists,  like  Esquirol,  Pinet, 
Fabret,  and  others,  have  shown  that  insanity  is  by  no 
means  necessarily  connected  with  organic  disturbances 
in  the  brain.     On  the  contrary,  Cuvier,  Rubinstein,  and 


276  Science  and  Christianity 

Helmholtz  suffered  in  their  youth  from  water  on  the 
brain.  In  twenty  cases  of  acute  madness,  says  Lelut, 
there  were  at  least  seventeen  normal  brains.  In  the 
case  of  long-continued  injury,  however,  alternations  of 
madness  and  sanity  have  been  observed.  It  has  hap- 
pened, too,  that  the  madness  has  suddenly  disappeared 
before  the  injury  had  healed.  Esquirol  is  of  opinion 
that  changes  in  the  brain  occur  only  when  the  nerve- 
centers  of  motion  and  feeling  are  also  affected;  not, 
however,  in  cases  of  purely  intellectual  insanity.  The 
theory  of  Moleschott  and  Feuerbach,  that  the  amount 
of  phosphorus  in  the  brain  is  the  criterion  of  the  think- 
ing power,  and  that  too  great  a  quantity  of  phosphorus 
causes  madness,  is  not  satisfactory.  Lassaigne  found 
that  the  brain  of  a  lunatic  does  not  contain  more  phos- 
phorus than  that  of  an  intellectual  or  a  stupid  person, 
and  that  the  brains  of  fishes,  which  have  no  great  repu- 
tation as  thinkers,  contain  a  great  quantity  of  phos- 
phorus. The  pathological  anatomy  of  the  brain,  the 
greatest  authorities  tell  us,  is  full  of  mysteries  and 
anomahes. 

We  have  by  no  means  exhausted  the  articles  of  be- 
lief for  which  the  materialist  demands  as  blind  a  faith 
as  that  with  which  he  reproaches  us  Christians.  If  the 
universal  ether  of  Spiller  was  marvelous,  that  eminently 
subtle  substance,  thinking  logically  and  of  set  purpose, 
though  quite  unconscious  of  doing  so,  all-wise  and  all- 
just  through  no  will  of  its  own,  there  has  arisen  a  yet 
stronger  than  Spiller.  The  philosopher  Avenarius  some 
time  ago  prophesied  that  it  would  become  necessary 
"to  allow  the  possession  of  consciousness  to  the  atom." 
This  bold  step  has  now  been  taken  by  Professor  Haeckel. 


Materialism  277 

He  has  discovered  that  nothing  is  to  be  done  with  soul- 
less matter,  and  that  it  explains  neither  the  world  nor 
life,  neither  consciousness  nor  heredity.  In  his  work, 
"The  Perigenesis  [wave-motion]  of  the  Plastidule,"  he 
requires  that  we  should  imagine  all  matter  as  animate, 
and  think  of  every  atom  of  the  mass  as  provided  with 
a  constant  and  immortal  atom-soul.  We  have  thus  re- 
turned to  the  once-discredited  ''soul,"  or,  in  other  words, 
to  spirit!  ''As  the  mass  of  atoms,"  he  says,  "is  inde- 
structible and  unchangeable,  so  is  the  atom-soul  insep- 
arably bound  up  with  it  eternal  and  immortal.  The 
motion  of  the  atoms  in  the  formation  and  dissolution  of 
a  chemical  combination  is  only  intelligible  if  we  ascribe 
to  them  feeling  and  will''  Thereupon  he  boldly  states 
the  following  arbitrary  propositions:  "If  every  atom  is 
endowed  with  feeling  and  will,  the  plastidule  (organic 
molecule)  is  distinguished  from  them  by  possessing 
memory.  All  plastidiiles  possess  memory.  This  facidty 
is  wanting  in  all  other  molecules^'  The  faculties  of  imagi- 
nation and  the  formation  of  ideas,  of  thought  and  con- 
sciousness, of  practice  and  habit,  of  nutrition  and  propa- 
gation, are  based  upon  the  function  of  the  ''unconscious 
memory.''  (!)  ''Heredity  is  the  memory  of  the  plastidide, 
variability  is  the  comprehension  of  the  plastidide."  (!) 
"The  former  causes  the  constancy,  the  latter  the  variety 
of  organic  forms."  All  propositions  resting  on  faith 
alone ! 

What  an  amount  of  feeling  and  will  there  must  be 
in  a  pinhead  which,  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  II,  contains, 
according  to  Gaudin,  so  many  atoms  that  it  would  take 
250,000  years  to  count  them;  what  an  amount  of 
thought  in  a  match  whose  millions  and  millions  of  mole- 


278  Science  and  Christianity 

cules  unconsciously  remember  everything  they  have  ex- 
perienced since  they  became  "plastidules !" 

The  materialist  is  here  juggling  with  words  and 
hypotheses  which  explain  nothing.  Do  we  know  any- 
thing more  about  thought;  can  we  form  a  clearer  idea 
of  it  if,  doing  away  with  the  human  soul,  we  assume  in 
every  organic  molecule  a  thinking  and  memorizing  soul? 
Evidently  not;  we  have  arbitrarily  supposed  the  exist- 
ence of  several  billions  of  superfluous  souls,  and  are 
none  the  wiser. 

Dubois-Reymond  ridicules  the  notion :  ''The  suppo- 
sition, which  I  made  as  reductio  ad  ahsurdum,  that  the 
individual  atoms  are  endowed  with  consciousness,  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  propounds  as  a  metaphysical  axiom !  If 
atoms  feel,  what  is  the  use  of  the  organs  of  sense?" 
(Die  sieben  Weltratsel,  pp.  78,  79.)  Spiller  too  declares : 
''The  attempts  to  explain  organic  vital  processes  by 
means  of  the  unproved  and  unprovable  animation  of  in- 
dividual atoms  seem  to  me  quite  hopeless."  (Das 
Leben,  page  9.) 

Is  there  not  a  Divine  irony  apparent,  is  not  God 
laughing  his  detractors  to  scorn,  when  the  very  men 
who  will  have  nothing  to  do  Avith  him  as  the  great  God 
who  fills  the  universe  are  ultimately  forced  by  their  own 
science  to  endow  the  atom,  the  smallest  particle  of 
matter,  with  unthinkable  and  incomprehensible  ener- 
gies, to  exalt  it  as  the  great  Original,  the  eternal,  the 
causa  causanim,  and  to  prostrate  themselves  before  the 
tiny  idol?  And  the  men  who  would  have  us  believe  in 
a  thing  so  inconceivable  are  they  who  proclaim  loudly 
that  they  only  believe  what  they  can  see,  what  they  can 
grasp  and  comprehend,  what  can  be  proved,  what  is  in 


Materialism  279 

accordance  with  fact,  what  can  stand  before  the  tribunal 
of  pure  Reason ! 

Truly  our  Christian  behef  can  vie  boldly  with  this 
pretended  science  of  materiaUsm  in  clearness,  in  logical 
coherence,  in  intelligibility,  and  scientific  foundation. 
Hypothesis  for  hypothesis,  faith  for  faith,  methinks  our 
belief  appeals  more  to  common  sense. 

Materialism  loses  itself  in  contradictions,  and  shows 
itself  inadequate  even  in  its  explanation  of  the  material 
creation.  On  this  subject  Dr.  Maximilian  Klein,  curi- 
ously enough  an  enemy  to  Christianity,  writes:  "The 
materialism  so  widespread  among  students  of  nature 
is  a  sign  of  the  want  of  logical  training  unfortunately 
only  too  common  among  men  of  science.  Logically 
trained  minds  must  take  exception  to  the  extremely 
vague  conception  of  ''force,"  and  the  exceedingly  ob- 
scure coupling  of  it  with  matter;  they  must  also  object 
to  the  confused  derivation  of  spiritual  life  from  matter. 
The  soul-processes  are  confusedly  given  out,  for  ex- 
ample by  Iv.  Biichner,  now  as  bodily  movements,  now 
as  the  effects  of  motion.  Think,  too,  of  the  careless 
oversight  of  the  principal  difference  between  bodily  and 
mental  facts  in  the  well-known  utterance  of  Carl  Vogt, 
that  "the  thoughts  are  secreted  by  the  brain  in  the  same 
way  as  the  urine  is  by  the  kidneys."  "The  first-men- 
tioned objection  is  specially  applicable  to  the  new  variety 
of  materialism  known  as  'monism,'  which  is  rapidly 
coming  to  the  fore.  The  universal  substance  (or  matter) 
assumed  by  this  doctrine  is  a  metaphysical  idea  which  is 
completely  indescribable  because  it  is  beyond  compre- 
hension. It  is  a  pure  construction,  and  because  of  the 
qualities  attributed  to  it  (absolute,  infinite,  without  prop- 


28o  Science  and  Christianity 

erties),  contradictory,  vague,  and  irrational.  In  short, 
materialism  in  all  its  forms  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  system 
absolutely  metaphysical  and  dogmatic." 


We  see  how  little  able  the  materialist  is  to  explain 
even  the  forms  and  phenomena  of  matter;  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  system,  however,  becomes  still  more  appar- 
ent when  we  bring  it  face  to  face  with  the  life  of  the 
world  and  the  human  race,  the  phenomena  of  history, 
and  the  ideas  and  spiritual  forces  which  agitate  the 
world. 

The  materialist  does  not  even  try  to  explain  the 
spirit;  he  contents  himself  with  denying  its  existence. 
For  how  should  eternal  matter  have  created  a  spirit 
which  looks  at  it  critically,  tests  it  and  examines  it,  and 
then  contemptuously  exclaims,  "I  am  greater  than 
thou!"  And  with  right,  for  one  is  superior  to  what 
one  examines  and  explains. 

Love,  faith,  hope,  duty  and  morality,  conscience  and 
remorse,  the  fear  of  God,  and  religion  are  to  him  curi- 
ous, inexplicable,  worthless  products  of  matter,  which 
show  traces  of  insanity  in  their  constant  aspirations  after 
something  higher,  after  God,  persistently  denying  their 
origin  and  the  source  of  their  life,  dead  matter.  He 
would  fain  regard  them  as  chemical  products  which  a 
more  advanced  science  will  be  able  to  produce  artifi- 
cially. This  view  is  indeed  taken  by  a  Frenchman ;  for  to 
the  materialist  such  facts  are  terribly  in  the  way,  and 
hitherto  he  has  had  to  content  himself  with  declaring 
the  religions  of  all  races  from  Pole  to   Pole,   during 


Materialism  281 

thousands  of  years  to  be  the  invention  of  priests  to 
whose  interest  it  has  always  been  to  keep  the  people  in 
a  state  of  ignorance  and  superstition — a  very  poor  ex- 
planation, which  is  not  historically  tenable,  either! 
From  the  North  Pole  to  the  South  for  six  thousand 
years  man,  whether  Indian  or  Eskimo,  Hottentot  or 
Tunguse,  has  bowed  before  two  great  Powers,  that  of 
Good  and  that  of  Evil,  of  whose  dominion  over  himself 
and  nature  he  is  dimly  conscious.  Whence  comes  this 
feeling,  common  to  all  races,  of  separation  from  some 
great  Unknown,  of  banishment  from  some  blessed  place 
never  seen,  but  dimly  conceived?  "Who  dares,"  cries 
Seneca,  "to  afBrm  that  the  gods  live  without  thought  of 
or  care  for  us?  Does  he  not  hear  all  the  voices  at  prayer, 
does  he  not  see  everywhere  hands  raised  imploringly 
to  heaven?"  "The  soul  of  man,"  says  Jacob  Boehme, 
"is  ever  seeking  his  fatherland,  from  which  he  has  wan- 
dered, and  longs  to  get  home  to  everlasting  rest.  His 
constant  question  is.  Where  dwells  God  with  the  holy 
angels?  and  Where  is  our  dear  home  where  death  can 
not  enter?  It  can  not  be  in  this  world,  or  we  should 
have  found  it  long  ago." 

Besides  the  origin  of  life,  the  materialist  is  equally 
powerless  to  explain  the  presence  of  death,  which  he 
looks  upon  as  a  material  phenomenon,  while  to  us  it 
is  a  spiritual  one.  For  death,  the  terrible  power  which 
overshadows  and  darkens  the  whole  of  life,  is  not  a 
natural  occurrence,  and  as  such  to  be  explained  by  sci- 
ence, but  something  unnatural  which  has  come  from 
without.  This  is  proved  by  the  fear  of  death  observable 
in  the  whole  creation,  the  fear  of  the  animal  and  the 
infusorian,   the   constant  dread   of  man.     If  death   is 


282  Science  and  Christianity 

merely  the  natural  resolution  of  the  body  Into  its  com- 
ponent atoms,  what  does  it  matter  to  my  atoms  if  they 
are  to  form  new  combinations,  and  of  what  nature  these 
are?  Why  should  chemical  substances  have  such  a  hor- 
ror of  forming  other  substances?  Nay,  if,  to  use  the 
favorite  expression,  death  is  but  "the  goal  of  our  life 
fixed  by  nature,"  it  ought  rather  to  be  approached  hke 
every  other  goal,  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction. 

But  that  is  not  the  case,  and  even  death  from  ex- 
treme old  age,  the  kind  of  death  which  we  call  ''nat- 
ural," is  anything  but  natural.  It  would  never  enter 
a  child's  head  to  inquire.  Why  is  so-and-so  still  alive? 
but  it  would  at  once  ask.  Why  did  he  die?  Yung  writes 
of  the  natives  of  Australia  on  the  Lower  Murray :  ''The 
Marrinjeri  regard  death  as  something  unnatural.  They 
believe  that  life  would  last  undisturbed  unless  put  an 
end  to  by  some  fatality  or  by  disease  produced  by 
magic."  The  Medical  Faculty  of  Paris  In  1572  dis- 
cussed the  thesis,  "Is  the  necessity  of  death  Innate  in 
man?"  Schwann,  the  founder  of  the  cellular  theory, 
says  frankly,  "I  really  do  not  know  why  we  die !" 

The  common  comparison  of  the  human  body  in  old 
age  to  a  wornout  machine  is  quite  erroneous.  The 
body  Is  not  a  lifeless  machine,  animated  from  without 
by  steam  or  water-power;  but  Is,  like  the  acorn  and 
the  egg,  an  organism  which  bears  within  Itself  the 
powers  by  which  It  Is  continually  renewed.  It  is  not  to 
be  explained  why  the  child,  after  becoming  full-grown 
through  the  assimilation  of  food,  all  at  once  ceases  to 
grow,  though  the  man  eats  and  digests  as  before.  It  is 
still  more  Inexplicable  how  after  a  few  years  he  begins 
to  decrease,  becomes,  in  fact,  smaller,  and  dies;  how 


Materialism  283 

the  vital  forces  in  him  become  paralyzed,  for  nowhere 
else  have  we  in  nature  an  instance  of  the  paralysis  of  a 
force.  To  talk  of  bones  and  sinews  becoming  hard  and 
brittle  is  no  explanation,  because  the  bones  and  sinews 
of  an  old  man  are  not  the  same  that  he  possessed  in  his 
youth.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  human  body 
renews  itself  not  every  seven  years,  but  still  more 
quickly,  on  an  average  every  three  years,  the  renewal  of 
substance  taking  place  in  some  people  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  body  more  quickly  than  in  others.  Accordingly 
the  old  man  of  seventy-five  has  no  longer  the  same  body 
that  he  had  at  seventy.  Why,  then,  can  not  the  same 
vital  force  produce  from  the  same  substances,  and  often 
under  much  more  favorable  conditions,  such  as  more 
abundant  and  better  nourishment,  more  rest  and  care, 
the  same  body  as  it  did  in  youth?  Why  does  it  ulti- 
mately refuse  altogether  to  go  on  building  up  the  body 
in  spite  of  sufficient  food  and  drink,  so  that  man  is  at 
last  compelled  to  die,  professedly  of  old  age,  as  if  force 
or  matter,  phosphates  or  carbon  hydrates,  could  become 
old!  If  the  separate  parts  of  a  locomotive  were  care- 
fully replaced  by  others  as  soon  as  they  showed  traces 
of  wear,  no  one  would  expect  the  machinery  to  go  on 
doing  less  and  less,  and  finally  stop  altogether — because 
the  steam-power  was  paralysed! 

Continual  life,  the  constant  growth  of  an  organism 
which  in  its  origin  possesses  the  powers  necessary  to 
growth,  is  the  only  thing  which  is  ''natural,"  given  a 
sufficient  supply  of  material.  The  Bible  tells  us  so,  too. 
The  God  of  Life  made  all  his  creatures  for  everlasting 
life.  But  by  one  man's  sin  death  came  into  the  world; 
it  is  the  wages  of  sin.    And  in  answer  to  the  postulate 


284  Science  and  Christianity 

of  our  spirit,  which  feels  that  we  were  made  for  Hfe, 
and  not  for  death,  we  have  the  promise,  ''There  shall  be 
no  more  death."  (Revelation  xxi.)  Of  Abraham,  who 
died  "in  a  good  old  age,"  it  says  he  died  ''full  of  years," 
having  filled  up  the  measure  of  life.  Therefore  because 
the  soul  which  has  been  sent  by  God  into  the  world  has, 
as  Jacob  Boehme  says,  "proved  to  the  full  the  mystery 
of  creation,  and  found  that  it  is  only  the  mirror  of  the 
Eternal,  it  breaks  the  mirror,  desiring  to  return  to  the 
Eternal  whence  it  came;"  therefore  we  die.  Or  as  Cul- 
man  says,  "When  the  gift  has  been  assimilated,  the 
assimilation  of  the  Giver  must  immediately  follow!" 
This  world  is  the  gift  of  God,  and  of  the  devil  also. 
When  man  has  tasted  to  the  full  its  joys  and  sorrows, 
its  ideas  and  powders,  it  becomes  insipid  to  him,  and  he 
stands  in  need  of  a  higher  power  either  of  good  or  evil; 
he  longs  for  either  heaven  or  hell,  for  God  or  for  the 
devil;  and  he  dies,  not  because  his  bones  have  become 
hard  and  brittle,  but  because  the  spirit  in  him  no  longer 
takes  the  trouble  to  go  on  building  up  for  itself  a  body, 
a  material  appearance;  because  his  soul  is  weary  of 
earthly  food,  though  all  unconscious  of  it.  This  is  the 
reason  from  a  subjective  and  human  standpoint.  Re- 
garded from  the  objective  and  divine,  we  die  because  by 
constant  sin  we  have  separated  ourselves  more  and  more 
from  God,  the  Source  of  all  life,  like  a  branch  gradually 
severed  from  the  trunk  which  supplies  the  sap. 

We  have  in  the  death  of  Christ  on  the  cross  and  the 
suicide  of  Judas  a  type  of  the  death  of  the  Christian  and 
of  the  godless  man.  The  ideal  death  of  the  Christian 
is  martyrdom;  that  is,  the  yielding  up  of  his  God-given 
life  for  the  sake  of  God  and  for  love  of  the  God  who 


Materialism  285 

himself  died  a  martyr's  death  on  earth.  The  fitting  end 
of  the  atheist  is  suicide,  the  voluntary  plunge  into  sup- 
posed annihilation,  in  reality,  alas!  into  the  iron  arms 
of  Satan.  Hartmann,  the  materialist  and  philosopher, 
has  with  commendable  candor  set  forth  suicide  as  the 
ultimate  consequence  of  materialism;  the  speedy  suicide 
of  humanity  and  of  creation  in  general,  a  universal  ces- 
sation of  the  desire  or  will  to  live  is  the  end  to  be  de- 
sired! The  man  is  perfectly  right  from  his  point  of 
view,  and  has  the  support  of  no  less  an  authority  than 
St.  Paul.  For  he  exclaimed  on  one  occasion: 
"Wretched  man  that  I  am !  Who  shall  deliver  me  from 
the  body  of  this  death?"  And  at  another  time  he  con- 
fesses candidly,  "If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope,  we  are 
of  all  men  most  miserable." 

It  is  true  that  comparatively  few,  as  far  as  appears, 
have  come  to  either  the  one  end  or  the  other.  But  is  it 
not  martyrdom  when  a  man  spends  his  whole  life  in 
God's  service,  and  wears  himself  out  in  that  service? 
And  is  it  not  suicide  when  a  man,  by  indulgence  in  for- 
bidden pleasures,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the 
eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  consumes  his  powers  in  the 
service  of  sin,  and  thus  shortens  his  life?  Are  not  most, 
perhaps  all,  men  looked  at  in  this  light  either  martyrs 
or  suicides?  How  terribly  true  the  assertion  is  that  sui- 
cide is  the  normal  end  of  the  godless,  is  shown  by  the 
ever-increasing  number  of  suicides  which  in  Europe 
alone,  it  is  said,  annually  exceed  three  hundred  thou- 
sand; and  God  alone  knows  how  many  are  kept  secret. 
At  any  rate  the  number  in  this  century  far  exceeds  the 
total  of  those  killed  in  war — the  suicide  of  the  highest 
and  greatest,  the  learned  and  respected,  the  richest  and 


286  Science  and  Christianity 

apparently  happiest.  We  can  hardly  take  up  a  news- 
paper at  the  present  day  without  reading  of  the  sensa- 
tional suicide,  not  only  of  criminals,  desperate  fathers  of 
families,  of  betrayed  girls,  and  boys  craving  for  notori- 
ety, but  also  of  princes  and  generals,  officers  and  bank 
directors,  men  of  science,  and  government  officials.  We 
challenge  the  opponents  of  Christianity  to  show  us  a 
Hst  a  tenth  or  a  hundredth  part  of  the  length  of  "pietists" 
and  "psalm-singers,"  who  during  the  same  period  have 
committed  suicide.  And  if  they  plead  that  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases  mental  aberration  and  temporary  insanity 
was  the  cause,  which  we  do  not  wish  to  deny,  we  must 
yet  remark  on  the  curious  fact  that  Christians  are  re- 
markably exempt  from  these  lamentable  mental  con- 
ditions. 

Materialism  is  still  more  powerless  in  face  of  the 
second  death,  the  death  of  the  soul — the  agonized 
death,  even  where  there  is  no  special  bodily  pain,  of 
many  an  infamous  criminal  and  blasphemer  who, 
plagued  by  gnawing  remorse,  tortured  by  a  terrible  fear 
of  the  future,  declared  they  already  felt  the  pains  of 
hell.  This  "fearful  looking-for  of  judgment"  is  an  un- 
deniable fact,  which  is  not  to  be  explained  away  by  any 
theory  of  eternal  matter.  The  "conquistador"  who  had 
the  conquered  Indians  devoured  alive  by  his  dog,  and 
when  himself  mortally  wounded  replied  to  the  question 
of  his  companion-in-arms  where  he  felt  the  pain,  "In 
my  soul,"  is  a  proof  against  materialism.  So,  too,  is 
the  calm  and  peaceful  end  of  the  Christian.  He  dies — 
by  which  we  do  not  mean  so  much  the  act  itself,  as  the 
sometimes  protracted  dying  from  the  moment  when  it 
becomes  clear  to  him  that  his  time  has  come — at  peace 


Materialism  287 

with  his  fellow-men,  with  himself,  reconciled  to  God 
and  the  world,  a  fruit  fully  ripe;  and  often  there  shines 
in  his  face  a  reflection  of  an  unearthly  light,  and  often 
his  lips  utter  a  truth  which  is  not  of  this  world.  There 
must  be  some  real  reason  for  this ! 

Besides  failing  to  explain  the  origin  of  life  and  the 
occurrence  of  death,  materialism  fails  to  do  justice  to 
the  simplest  material  manifestations  of  life.  How  can, 
for  example,  such  minute  quantitative  and  qualitative, 
physical  and  chemical  differences  as  exist  between  the 
brains  of  great  men  and  men  of  a  low  order  of  intellect 
account  for  the  immense  difference  of  their  achieve- 
ments? Peter  the  Great,  who  by  means  of  his  tremen- 
dous will-power  forged  an  empire  out  of  barbarous  and 
resisting  elements,  or  Bismarck  who  compelled  forty 
million  Germans  to  carry  out  his  plans,  are  historically 
for  that  reason  a  million  times  greater  than  many  a 
butcher  or  agricultural  laborer  who  nevertheless  pos- 
sesses about  the  same  quantity  of  brain-matter. 
Wherein  lies  the  cause  of  the  difference?  Quantitatively 
it  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  hundreds  of  pounds  of  brain- 
substance;  qualitatively  the  finest  cell-organization  im- 
aginable would  by  no  means  afford  an  explanation.  Or, 
looking  at  the  question  from  another  point  of  view: 
In  a  certain  provincial  town  there  dies  an  old  bachelor. 
Not  only  the  world,  but  his  native  town,  his  own  little 
circle,  undisturbed  by  the  event,  pursue  their  calm  ex- 
istence. But  an  Alexander  the  Great  dies,  and  the  world 
is  unhinged.  And  yet  In  a  materialistic  sense  we  have 
In  both  cases  the  same  occurrence,  the  disaggregation 
of  twelve  hundred  grams  of  brain-matter,  and  eighty 
pounds  of  flesh  and  bone  which  now  go  to  form  inor- 


288  Science  and  Christianity 

ganic  instead  of  organic  combinations.  If  that  is  the 
kernel  of  the  matter,  why  all  the  commotion  over  the 
death  of  Alexander? 

If  existence  is,  as  a  well-known  materialist  main- 
tains as  sum  total  of  his  experience,  the  greatest  of  all 
ills,  then  Genghis  Khan  who  erected  pyramids  of  sev- 
enty thousand  men,  Torquemada  who  boasted  of  hav- 
ing burnt  eight  thousand  men,  still  better  the  Chinese 
general  who  during  the  Taeping  rebellion  had  one  thou- 
sand prisoners  beheaded  daily  for  three  months,  were 
greater  benefactors  to  mankind  than  St.  Elizabeth  or 
Miss  Nightingale  or  Kate  Marsden,  the  nurse  of  the 
lepers  in  Siberia,  who  from  humanity  and  by  well-organ- 
ized nursing  have  kept  thousands  of  sufferers  longer  in 
this  useless  state  of  existence !  In  that  case  the  mother 
who  nurses  a  poor  crippled,  perhaps  idiot,  child  for 
years  to  the  detriment  of  her  own  health,  is  positively 
punishable;  for  on  the  one  hand  she  is  prolonging  to  no 
purpose  a  painful  existence,  and  on  the  other  depriving 
the  community  of  so  much  useful  energy! 

The  materialist  view  of  life,  then,  brings  us  face  to 
face  with  a  world,  with  an  existence  as  full  of  riddles 
as  ever  were  invented  by  the  deepest  Christian  mystic. 


Materialism  is  unlovely  In  its  relation  to  nature, 
among  other  things.  There  is  in  it  an  utter  lack  of 
heartiness  and  sympathy.  It  could  scarcely  be  other- 
wise; for  nature  Is  to  the  materialist  nothing  but  the 
often  aimless,  sometimes  aggravating  and  harmful,  re- 
sult of  blind  forces.    He  can  not  free  himself  from  the 


Materialism  289 

position  to  which  logic  forces  the  premises  of  material- 
ism. How  should  he  feel  attracted  by  it?  His  doctrines 
do  not  even  admit  of  any  great  self-esteem.  What  a 
gulf  there  is  between  Schleiden's  definition  of  man  as 
*^the  animal  capable  of  consciousness  of  himself  as  an 
intellectual  being"  (Das  Meer,  page  602),  and  the  Bible, 
which  proclaims  to  us,  *'Ye  are  gods,  ye  are  the  sons  of 
God,  ye  are  made  in  the  image  of  Jehovah!"  Entirely 
in  keeping  with  his  views  is  the  little  feeling  which  the 
materialist  has  for  womanhood  and  childhood.  We  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  he  can  not  be  a  good  husband  and 
father,  for  a  man  is  never  so  good  or  so  bad  as  his 
theories;  but  when  a  well-known  exponent  of  the  doc- 
trines designates  woman  as  ''the  mother-animal  of  the 
human  species,"  and  another  marvels  how  a  mother  can 
be  beside  herself  with  joy  at  the  squeaking  of  a  few 
pounds  of  flesh,  we  can  not  credit  them  with  any  great 
comprehension  of  the  woman-soul  or  any  feeling  for 
the  beautiful  as  exemplified  in  child-life. 

The  materialist  experiences  no  desire  to  glorify  na- 
ture or  to  improve  it;  it  is  interesting,  but  at  the  same 
time  sad,  to  see  how  by  cutting  himself  adrift  from  God 
he  gets  farther  and  farther  from  nature,  and  at  first  un- 
consciously, but  gradually  with  consciousness,  endeavors 
to  substitute  for  it  ingenious  and  artificial  devices.  A 
few  years  ago  at  a  Science  Congress  the  artificial  fabri- 
cation of  food-products  was  recommended  as  a  desir- 
able object  of  endeavor;  and  the  hope  was  expressed 
on  the  same  occasion  that  man  would  in  the  course  of 
centuries  succeed  in  acquiring  a  sixth  finger,  aspirations 
which  would  fail  to  satisfy  an  Eskimo  or  a  Tunguse. 
For  what  the  savage  desires  is  not  an  increased  number 
19 


290  Science  and  Christianity 

of  fingers  and  so  many  tons  of  chemical  provisions,  but 
freedom  from  care,  from  the  guilt  which  oppresses  him, 
and  from  the  crushing  consciousness  that  he  is  mortal. 
In  recent  times  Professor  Berthelot,  of  Paris,  has 
publicly  declared  how  happy  man  will  one  day  be, 
when,  agriculture  and  gardening  done  away  with  for- 
ever, instead  of  feeding  on  meat,  vegetables,  and  fruit, 
he  will  only  have  to  carry  a  little  box  filled  with  albumen 
phosphates  and  other  means  of  sustenance,  which  will 
be  prepared  very  cheaply  by  means  of  electricity !  It  is 
not  quite  clear  from  his  speech  whether  he  is  in  earnest 
or  not;  but  in  any  case  he  only  expresses  the  acknowl- 
edged aim  of  many  materialistic  chemists  and  naturalists, 
especially  in  America.  The  gifts  of  God  which  he  makes 
to  grow  in  abundance  night  and  day,  corn  and  oil  and 
wine,  wholesome  vegetables  and  delicious  fruits,  are 
to  be  flung  at  his  feet;  instead  of  fruit-trees  which,  once 
planted,  refresh  us  for  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  with  their 
fruits,  and  grass  for  the  cattle  which,  too,  grow  of  them- 
selves, whose  milk  and  flesh  serve  us  for  food,  we  are 
to  see  erected  everywhere  at  enormous  expense  in- 
numerable electro-chemical  factories  with  thousands  of 
costly  machines  which,  being  in  constant  need  of  repair, 
make  large  workshops  necessary.  And  in  these  pro- 
vision manufactories  thousands  of  agricultural  laborers 
now  turned  artisans  will  be  occupied  day  and  night  in 
preparing  the  millions  of  tons  of  food  and  the  hundreds 
of  millions  of  boxes  necessary  for  the  daily  consumption, 
with  noise  and  danger  and  expense;  round  about  the 
factories  there  will  probably  be  mountains  of  hideous 
refuse  and  lakes  of  evil-smelling  liquid.  And  thousands 
of  others  will  be  employed  with  the  everlasting  packing, 


Materialism  291 

addressing,  and  dispatching,  with  the  receiving  and  dis- 
tributing of  the  boxes.  And  if  any  hitch  occurs  in  the 
machinery  or  the  means  of  transport,  starvation  will 
stare  them  in  the  face.  Will  these  dainty  pills  agree 
with  every  digestion,  and  not  in  the  course  of  weeks 
and  months  cause  serious  illnesses?  And  all  this  in 
order  that  man,  independent  of  agriculture,  the  health- 
iest form  of  employment,  may  wander,  idle  and  bored, 
box  of  chemical  tabloids  in  hand,  over  the  earth  now 
overgrown  with  thorns  and  thistles,  or  perhaps  over 
deserts,  the  air  of  which,  Professor  Berthelot  tells  us, 
is  much  more  healthy  than  that  of  woods  or  mead- 
ows. ( !)  No  more  joyous  feasts  and  banquets,  no  daily 
family  meals !  Every  one  puts  his  fingers  into  his  penny 
box,  and  does  not  know  how  to  kill  time.  For  it  has 
been  proved  that  as  soon  as  the  sting  of  necessity  is  with- 
drawn man  stagnates  bodily  and  mentally;  as  we  see  in 
the  case  of  the  Fijians  and  Tahitians,  and  in  the  Romans 
when  they  were  provided  with  bread  and  games,  had 
their  panem  et  circenses  at  the  expense  of  the  State. 
"Where  as  in  New  Guinea,'*  says  Wallace,  "eighteen 
hundred  cakes  of  one-third  pound  can  be  obtained  from 
a  sago-tree  with  ten  days'  labor,  so  that  the  annual  cost 
of  living  amounts  to  twelve  shillings  a  head,  man  lives 
in  misery;  for  the  less  work  nature  demands  of  him,  the 
more  he  hates  it."  In  an  Egyptian  tomb  there  is  this 
inscription  over  a  harvest-scene,  "When  man  cultivates 
the  earth,  he  remains  full  of  gentleness."  Ancient  wis- 
dom, modern  madness ! 

The  poor  and  miserable  aspirations  of  materialism, 
and  the  picture  of  the  future  which  it  draws  and  would 
fain  realize,  show  its  views  in  a  very  unfavorable  light; 


292  Science  and  Christianity 

for  one  knows  a  man  by  his  desires.  Ask  any  one  what 
he  most  wishes,  what  he  would  do  if  he  inherited  a 
million  to-morrow,  and  the  answer  will  show  you  the 
man  as  he  is.  Once  there  stood  in  the  wilderness  of 
Sinai  an  old  man  w^hom  Jehovah  assured  of  his  favor. 
He  might  have  asked  empire,  or  the  power  to  extermi- 
nate his  enemies — gold  and  silver  were  of  no  account 
to  him — or  he  might  have  desired  to  live  ten  thousand 
years  that  he  might  behold  in  proud  security  the  rise 
and  fall  of  men  and  nations.  He,  how^ever,  besought, 
"Lord,  that  I  might  see  thy  face!" 

The  estrangement  of  the  materialist  from  nature 
goes  so  far  that  he  complains  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  purpose  in  the  order  of  nature.  But  the  fact  of  its 
continued  existence  is  a  proof  that  the  course  of  the 
world  is  systematically  and  suitably  ordered;  if  it  were 
not  so,  it  would  have  fallen  to  pieces  in  its  first  hour. 
The  most  trifling  alteration  would  endanger  the  exist- 
ence of  us  all.  The  slightest  increase  in  the  quantity 
of  carbonic-acid  in  the  air,  or  sea-water  in  the  place  of 
fresh  water,  or  one  hundred  degrees  difference  in  the 
temperature,  and  we  should  be  no  more,  and  half,  per- 
haps the  whole,  of  the  earth  dead.  A  letter  omitted 
from  the  chemical  formula,  one  figure  taken  from  the 
infinite  series,  and  the  world-equation  would  no  longer 
be  correct.  If  there  were  no  carefully  calculated  plan 
underlying  the  world,  the  air  would  not  be  suitable  for 
breathing  nor  the  lungs  for  the  air;  the  plants  could  not 
be  eaten  by  animals,  and  animals  might  have  no  mouths 
to  eat  with.  To  deny  that  creation  shows  a  marvelous 
adaptation  to  purpose,  is  to  deny  that  the  fish  is  suited 
to  the  water  and  the  bird  to  the  air,  the  eye  to  light,  the 


Materialism  293 

ear  to  sound,  the  hands  for  grasping",  and  the  feet  for 
walking. 

Of  the  suitability  and  purpose  of  the  world  in  a 
higher  sense,  Schopenhauer  says:  "At  this  present  pe- 
riod of  intellectual  weakness  pantheists  are  not  ashamed 
to  say  that  life  is  its  own  object.  If  our  existence  were 
the  chief  end  of  the  world,  it  would  be  the  most  wretched 
and  idiotic  object  ever  set  up,  whether  by  ourselves  or 
by  another."  (Parerga  et  Paral.,  §147.)  And  Flam- 
marion  said  at  the  grave  of  his  friend  Marpon :  "If  this 
grave  is  the  end  of  existence,  and  its  closing  word, 
Creation  is  senseless,  and  the  infinite  universe  with  all 
its  suns  and  moons,  with  all  its  creatures,  with  all  its 
light  and  hopes,  less  to  the  purpose  than  the  most  tri- 
fling action  of  the  dog  or  the  ant;  that  action  would  have 
an  object,  while  nature  in  general  would  have  none!" 
Purpose,  however,  presupposes  a  will  conscious  of  its 
object,  and  the  well-known  utterance  holds  good :  That 
this  perfectly-adapted  world  originated  of  itself  I  will 
not  believe  until  the  twenty-six  letters  of  the  alphabet, 
mixed  by  thousands  and  well-shaken,  arrange  them- 
selves of  themselves  into  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey. 

Still  more  insensate  than  the  denial  of  the  material 
purpose  of  the  universe  is  the  denial  of  its  spiritual  pur- 
pose, the  moral  order  of  the  world.  In  contradiction 
to  the  experience  of  all  mankind,  to  every-day  and  uni- 
versally known  facts,  to  the  inner  voice  of  man,  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  all  governments,  to  the  wis- 
dom of  all  nations  and  their  proverbs,  the  materialist 
denies  the  practical  and  profitable,  the  policy,  the  utility 
of  virtue  and  right,  and  the  injuriousness  and  destruc- 
tiveness,  the  unprofitableness  of  evil  and  wrong.     He 


294  Science  and  Christianity 

can  not  explain,  and  his  tenets  do  not  permit  him  to  be- 
lieve, that  ill-gotten  gains  never  prosper,  honesty  is  the 
best  policy;  that  pride  goes  before  a  fall;  that  life  is  not 
the  greatest  good,  but  sin  is  the  greatest  evil;  and  that 
all  guilt  is  avenged  on  earth;  in  short,  ''that  righteousness 
exalts  a  nation^  but  sin  is  the  ruin  of  man,"  the  great  and 
constant  confirmation  and  justification  by  fact  and  his- 
tor}^ — that  of  the  individual  and  of  the  nation — of  the 
eternal  laws  of  the  spirit,  the  Divine  logic  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world  which  Job  and  his  friends  admired, 
which  Solomon  affirms  in  his  Proverbs;  they  are  not 
chemical  and  physical  laws,  they  are  facts  which  can  not 
be  referred  to  the  mechanism  of  atoms.  And  therein 
lies  his  weakness  and  his  powerlessness,  even  if  he  suc- 
ceeded in  explaining  all  the  phenomena  of  matter  and 
in  solving  all  its  riddles. 

This  blindness  to  the  moral  order  of  the  world  is  the 
cause  of  the  darkness  which  surrounds  him.  In  him  is 
fulfilled  the  word  of  Solomon,  "The  righteous  eateth  to 
the  satisfying  of  his  soul,  but  the  soul  of  the  wicked 
shall  want."  While  the  Christian  finds  everywhere  in 
God's  world  logic,  justice,  goodness,  wisdom  to  the 
satisfying  of  his  soul,  and  for  the  growth  of  the  inner 
man,  to  the  materialist  the  world  is  desolate,  barren, 
and  unenjoyable,  an  objectless,  senseless,  and  perplex- 
ing piece  of  machinery.  What  is  the  use  of  so-called 
righteousness?  And  if  right  and  wrong  are  the  same, 
what  is  the  good  of  living?  So  he  becomes  bitter  and 
pessimistic,  and  in  a  greater  degree  the  more  he  is  by 
nature  inclined  to  nobility  of  mind.  One  hears  it  in 
their  words  and  writings,  and  many,  if  they  spoke 
openly,  would  probably  complain  like  a  classic  German 


Materialism  295 

writer  of  ''inward  withering."  With  the  same  intuitive 
logic  which  led  the  Greek  to  call  out  to  his  opponent, 
"You  are  getting  angry,  therefore  you  are  in  the 
wrong,"  we  cry  to  the  materialist,  "Your  view  of  life 
makes  you  unhappy,  consequently  it  is  not  the  true 
one!''  The  only  tolerable  form  of  materialism  is  that 
of  the  corpulent  gourmand,  who,  without  caring  to  in- 
quire what  truth  is,  lives  according  to  the  motto  rec- 
ommended to  him  long  ago  by  St.  Paul,  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die! 

Materialism  explains  neither  science  nor  art.  Not 
the  former,  because  to  a  consistent,  logical  materialism, 
knowing  or  not  knowing  is  a  matter  of  indifference. 
The  only  reasonable  object  of  a  brief  life  emerging  from 
nothingness  to  sink  again  into  nothingness  can  be  to 
experience  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  pleasure  with 
the  minimum  of  pain.  If  a  man  takes  pleasure  in  sci- 
ence, there  is  no  objection  to  his  seeking  his  individual 
enjoyment  in  that  way;  but  it  is  not  logical  of  him  to 
require  that  I  should  take  my  pleasure  in  the  same  man- 
ner, or  concede  to  science  a  right  or  influence  over  my 
life.  I  am  quite  justified  in  answering,  "I  prefer  a  purely 
material  form  of  enjoyment."  The  materialist  can  ofTer 
no  explanation  of  the  insatiable  thirst  for  knowledge 
which  is  shown  in  the  child's  questions:  What  is  that? 
What  do  you  call  it? 

Still  less  can  he  explain  art.  To  him  it  is  of  no  more 
value  than  the  Fijian  woman's  adornment  of  herself  with 
shells  and  coral,  and  the  war-paint  of  the  Indian,  an  ob- 
scure and  unconscious  impulse  of  matter  to  ornament 
itself  simply  because  it  is  pleased  to  do  so.  It  is  remark- 
able that  humanity  nevertheless  sets  a  high  value  upon 


296  Science  and  Christianity 

art.  How  comes  it  that  men  will  pay  thousands  for  a 
painted  piece  of  canvas,  for  a  few  trills  which  are  gone 
almost  as  soon  as  heard  from  a  Lucca  or  a  Patti;  men, 
too,  who  as  a  rule  are  reluctant  to  part  from  their  mam- 
mon? Meissonier's  sketch  of  a  grenadier  is  worth  5,000 
francs,  the  photograph  of  the  same,  one  and  sixpence. 
What  is  the  reason? 

We  call  to  witness  all  the  divinely-gifted  artists  of 
all  times,  who  with  feverish  zeal,  with  ardent  enthusiasm, 
with  touching  devotion  pursued  their  art  at  the  cost  of 
happiness  and  honor,  of  money,  nay,  in  many  cases  even 
of  their  daily  bread,  and  felt  themselves  blessed  by  her, 
that  art  is  something  much  higher  and  nobler!  A 
painter  is  not  a  man  who  has  learned  to  prepare  a  canvas 
and  lay  on  it  cobalt  and  madder,  burnt  sienna  and  Naples 
yellow,  finally  picking  out  the  high  lights.  A  musician 
is  not  a  man  who  by  years  of  practice  has  succeeded  in 
performing  with  ease  silvery  runs,  and  in  overcoming 
the  greatest  technical  difficulties  as  if  they  were  mere 
child's  play.  A  poet  is  not  a  man  with  an  utter  dis- 
regard of  his  linen  and  his  clothes,  and  a  lion-like  mane, 
who  writes  or  recites  with  great  skill  extraordinary 
thoughts  couched  in  rhymed  and  metrical  language. 
But  everywhere  and  always,  whether  he  chisels  marble 
or  models  terra-cotta,  paints  in  oil  or  water-color,  builds 
temples  or  castles,  sings,  plays  the  organ  or  the  violin, 
the  artist  is  a  man  to  whom  the  material,  in  itself  value- 
less, is  a  means  of  expressing  the  eternal  ideas  of  beauty 
dwelling  in  his  soul.  An  artist  is  he  who  sees  the  spirit 
behind  the  substance,  the  meaning  in  the  form,  the 
soul's  mood  in  the  color,  the  symbol  of  the  Eternal  in 
all  the  manifestations  of  the  evanescent,  and  does  not 


Materialism  297 

rest  till  he  has  made  visible  to  others  the  beauty  and 
truth  of  the  divine  and  eternal  ideas.  And  men  are 
grateful  to  him,  and  have  for  thousands  of  years  found 
in  art  a  source  of  joy;  for  those  ideas  are  necessary  to 
their  spiritual  life,  and  they  feel  it. 

Passing  on  to  the  highest  form  of  art,  poetry,  we 
find  that  it  is  based  entirely  on  anti-materialistic  ideas, 
and  is  only  possible  in  connection  with  such.  From 
Homer  to  Faust,  poets  have  sung  of  the  eternal  and 
divine  ideas  of  the  gods  as  guiding,  illuminating,  and 
punishing  powers,  of  the  struggle  between  the  two  prin- 
ciples of  good  and  evil,  of  the  final  triumph  of  right  and 
virtue,  and  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul;  without  these 
ideas  no  drama  is  possible — only  a  puppet-show.  These 
ideas  point  to  a  higher  and  a  highest  source  of  beauty 
which  is  to  be  seen  in  the  correlation  of  all  the  arts  in 
such  a  way  that  the  Nibelungenlied,  for  example,  may 
be  translated  into  music  and  represented  in  painting. 
Art  is  an  everlasting  protest  against  materialism,  which 
has  never  produced,  and  never  could  produce,  a  Michael 
Angelo,  a  Dante,  or  a  Bach,  those  princes  of  art  and 
of  intellect  also. 

*  *  * 

So  far,  however,  we  have  not  touched  the  real  weak- 
ness of  materialism.  It  ignores  the  three  mightiest 
powers  in  man  and  in  history:  faith,  hope,  and  love — 
those  imponderable  forces  which  animate  the  soul  in  a 
greater  degree  than  gravitation,  heat,  or  electricity  af- 
fect the  body,  and  without  which  the  life  of  man  would 
be  but  a  bestial  pursuit  of  food  and  drink,  a  rending  of 
one  another  in  the  struggle  for  pleasure  and  possession. 


298  Science  and  Christianity 

Materialism  leaves  love  out  of  the  question;  It  does 
not  know  what  to  make  of  it;  it  is  described  as  at  most 
an  obscure  magnetic  attraction  between  heterogeneous 
substances,  a  chemical  affinity!  The  world  without 
love !  It  would  be  a  den  of  murderers.  We  can  as  easily 
imagine  it  without  light !  What  is  it  which  drives  mil- 
lions of  men  to  work  early  and  late  in  the  sweat  of  their 
brow  at  plow  and  lathe,  in  mine  and  quarry,  day  after 
day,  to  provide  for  wife  and  child  at  home?  It  would  be 
much  easier  for  them  to  lead  a  single,  loveless  exist- 
ence. How  comes  it  that  millions  and  millions  of 
mothers  spend  their  powers  and  energies  day  and  night, 
during  long  months  and  years,  in  feeding,  nursing,  car- 
ing for  tiny  creatures  who  are  quite  helpless  and  in- 
capable of  recompensing  them  for  their  trouble;  nay, 
surround  weakly  and  crippled  children,  from  whom  no 
reward  nor  advantage  is  to  be  expected,  with  a  tenfold 
love!  How  comes  it  that  these  millions  of  children, 
without  speaking,  much  less  being  of  any  use,  make 
their  parents  more  than  happy  with  their  joyous  babble, 
with  a  smile  of  love  and  gratitude,  with  a  caress,  requit- 
ing thus  a  hundred-fold  all  that  has  been  done  for  them, 
filling  the  home  with  light  and  love?  Are  we  to  believe 
that  these  are  material  and  chemical  effects?  How  are 
we  to  account  for  the  fact  that  thousands  of  noble  men 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  noble  women  watch,  patient 
and  unwearied,  by  sick-beds,  by  the  wounded  and  dying 
on  the  battlefield,  binding  up  their  wounds  and  wiping 
the  death-dews  from  their  brows?  And  how  is  it  that 
this,  from  the  materialist's  standpoint,  objectless  waste 
of  force  and  energy,  touches  men's  hearts  and  wins  the 
esteem  of  even  the  roughest?    Or  how  comes  it  that 


Materialism  299 

every  year  thousands  of  brides  swear  at  the  altar  vows 
of  love  and  fidelity  to  the  husband  of  their  choice,  and 
joyfully  undertake  with  all  their  heart  to  find  from 
henceforth  their  happiness  in  making  him  happy?  What 
has  love  not  accomplished  so  long  as  there  have  been 
men  on  earth?  It  has  founded  and  destroyed  cities  and 
kingdoms,  carried  on  war  and  concluded  peace!  The 
materiaHst  has  nothing  to  say;  he  smiles  contemptu- 
ously, and  evades  the  question.  Naturally,  for  his  god, 
primal  matter,  knows  nothing  of  love;  one  can  not  sus- 
pect iron  or  hydrogen  atoms  of  such  a  weakness.  In 
that  case,  however,  he  must  not  pretend  to  offer  us  a 
system  which  explains  the  world,  or  must  at  least  recog- 
nize that  above  the  material  forces  there  are  higher, 
spiritual  forces  which  govern  it. 

Another  of  these  is  faith.  We  saw,  in  Chapter  IV, 
how  it  has  ever  been,  and  ever  will  be,  powerful  to  agi- 
tate the  world.  Let  us  look  at  it  from  the  materialist's 
point  of  view.  Speaking  of  the  power  of  faith,  a  well- 
known  man  of  science  wittily  remarks  that  it  will  cer- 
tainly remove  mountains,  but  has  so  far  never  been  ap- 
plied. To  our  mind  he  who  looks  at  the  history  of  the 
world  with  his  eyes  open  will  find  that  faith  removes 
other  things  than  mountains.  W^hat  mechanical  force 
was  it  which,  in  the  Crusades,  transported  thousands  of 
ships  and  galleys  with  heavy  instruments  of  war  and 
enormous  quantities  of  provisions,  thousands  of  mail- 
clad  knights  with  their  horses,  and  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  foot-soldiers  with  their  baggage,  from  Europe 
to  Asia,  no  small  achievement — what  was  it  but  faith? 
God  zvills  it?  And  God  did  will  it;  for  they  accomplished 
the  journey,  and  conquered  Jerusalem,  and  millions  of 


3CX)  Science  and  Christianity 

new  ideas  flowed  to  and  fro  between  West  and  East, 
and  millions  of  men  were  drawn  by  the  Crusades  from 
their  rough  life,  whose  only  aim  was  fighting  and  ma- 
terial enjoyment,  to  higher  and  divine  ideals,  as  seen  in 
many  of  the  beautiful  hymns  of  the  Crusaders. 

What  was  it  which,  in  the  year  1492,  drove  three 
ships,  with  crew  and  equipment,  over  the  waters  of  the 
unexplored  Atlantic  towards  an  unknown  goal?  What 
but  the  faith  of  the  man  who  watched  long  and  anx- 
iously to  see  emerge  from  the  sea  the  land  which,  in 
spite  of  all  the  men  of  science,  he  believed  lay  there? 
And  did  not  this  faith  of  his  create  a  New  World,  by 
being  the  cause  of  the  great  deeds,  the  travels  and  events 
connected  with,  and  resulting  from,  the  discovery?  The 
faith  in  his  star,  his  destiny,  his  divine  mission,  or  his 
own  power,  enabled  Alexander  and  Caesar,  Attila  and 
Napoleon,  to  destroy  and  found  empires,  to  change  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and,  looking  at  the  matter  from  a 
materialistic  standpoint,  to  effect  mechanical  achieve- 
ments and  transportations  of  matter  such  as  all  the 
steam-engines  of  the  present  day  could  not  accomplish 
without  its  aid. 

What  was  the  force  which  brought  about  the  Refor- 
mation, with  all  its  material,  political,  historical,  moral, 
and  spiritual  consequences  and  results?  What  broke 
the  papal  power,  and  kept  the  armies  of  Sweden,  Ger- 
many, and  Austria  embroiled  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War? 
Was  it  not  by  God's  will,  the  faith  of  one  man,  who,  at 
Worms,  exclaimed:  ''Here  I  stand;  I  can  not  do  other- 
wise; God  help  me!"  If  Luther's  faith  had  faltered,  if 
on  that  day  he  had  played  the  coward  and  hidden  him- 
self, the  course  of  history  would  have  been  altered. 


Materialism  301 

This  faith,  which  the  unbeHever  who  does  not  pos- 
sess it  regards  as  a  vain  and  impotent  imagination,  has 
repeatedly  in  history  shown  itself  to  be  a  powerful  me- 
chanical factor.  This  can  only  be  denied  by  those  who 
are  not  capable  of  reasoning  in  a  sufficiently  logical  man- 
ner to  be  able  to  recognize  the  imponderable  spiritual- 
ities as  the  true  spring  of  even  the  mechanical  actions 
of  men.  Does  not  language  everywhere  speak  of  the 
power  of  the  will,  rightly  recognizing  that  we  have  here 
to  do  with  an  actual  power  which  does  not  depend  on 
the  bulk  and  size  of  the  body,  nor  on  the  consumption 
of  oxygen  by  the  lungs,  and  yet  is  able  to  effect  im- 
portant exertions  of  nerve  and  muscle? 

Besides,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  the  ma- 
terialist, though  he  does  not  acknowledge  it,  himself 
makes  great  use  of  faith.  He  believes  a  multitude  of 
more  or  less  incredible  things,  and  requires  of  others 
the  same  belief.  Declarations  such  as  the  following: 
"The  immaterial  can  not  possibly  react  on  the  material" 
(Spiller);"  ''Thought  is  a  movement  of  matter"  (Mole- 
schott);  ''The  soul  is  the  brain  at  work,  and  nothing 
more"  (Broussais), — are  articles  of  belief — for  nobody 
can  prove  them  true — and  are  believed  implicitly  by 
those  with  whose  views  and  leanings  they  accord. 

Of  hope,  on  the  other  hand,  the  materiahst  knows 
nothing  at  all;  the  word  is  not  to  be  found  in  his  dic- 
tionary. Never  has  any  system,  any  philosophy  or  the- 
ology, so  terribly  realized  Dante's  words,  "Lasciafe  ogni 
speranza  voi  cKentratef  "Abandon  hope,  all  ye  who 
enter  here !"  There  is  no  place  for  hope  in  the  material- 
ist's creed.  St.  Paul  writes  to  the  Ephesians,  "Remem- 
ber that  ye  were  without  Christ,  having  no  hope,  and 


302  Science  and  Christianity 

without  God  in  the  world."  I  may  be  rich  and  honored; 
I  may  be  a  man  of  great  learning,  and  proudly  conscious 
of  the  fact;  but  in  spite  of  that,  misfortune  may  at  any 
moment  overtake  me.  My  banker  may  abscond  with  my 
money,  my  wife  may  die  of  syncope,  or  my  child  of  diph- 
theria; or  my  doctor  may  tell  me  with  a  grave  face, 
*'My  dear  sir,  you  are  suffering  from  cancer;  I  can  do 
nothing  for  you !"  Thus,  almost  in  an  instant,  my  whole 
future  is  darkened;  anxiety,  suffering,  misery,  and  finally 
death,  are  before  me.  What  comfort  will  it  be  to  me, 
then,  to  think  of  my  labors  in  the  field  of  science,  of  the 
admiration  of  posterity,  etc.?  Everything  looks  black 
to  my  soul !  Years  ago  I  was  on  a  visit  to  a  friend,  a 
country  gentleman,  when  I  happened  to  speak  of  para- 
dise. He  smiled,  and  pointing  out  of  the  window  over 
his  extensive  estate,  cried,  ''There  is  my  paradise!" 
And  certainly  it  was  a  paradise ;  vineyards  and  meadows, 
framed  by  fruit-trees,  lay  in  the  sunshine  sloping  down 
to  the  blue  lake,  and  above  them  the  snowy  Alpine  peaks 
rose  into  the  blue  sky!  A  few  years  afterwards  I  re- 
turned to  the  place;  the  lake  still  lay  smiling  in  the  sun- 
shine; the  trees  were  laden  with  blossoms;  but  the  owner 
of  it  all  sat  in  his  room  a  broken-hearted  man,  the  pic- 
ture of  misery.  His  son  had  been  drowned  in  the  lake 
before  his  eyes;  a  daughter  had  made  an  unhappy  mar- 
riage, and  he  himself  was  slowly  dying  of  an  incurable 
disease.  And  when  his  younger  daughter  came  into  his 
room  and  said,  "Father,  I  am  going  to  drive  into  town; 
what  shall  I  bring  you?"  he  answered,  gloomily,  "A 
pistol !" 

The  men  who  would  extinguish  the  sun  of  love  and 
the  morning  and  evening  stars  of  faith  and  hope,  leaving 


Materialism  303 

mankind  only  the  night  of  annihilation  to  look  for- 
ward to, — these  are  the  men  who  call  themselves  en- 
lightened, the  champions  of  light!  And  they  call  us 
who  believe  in  a  God  of  love  and  hope  for  an  everlast- 
ing life,  where  we  shall  shine  Uke  the  sun,  enemies  of 
light  and  obscurists. 

But  they  know  or  feel  why  they  treat  love  so  slight- 
ingly: Love  indicates  goodness,  is  produced  by  it,  and 
attracted  by  it,  and  presupposes  good,  as  hatred,  the 
offspring  of  evil,  does  wickedness;  and,  rightly  deduced, 
love  leads  us  to  a  God  of  goodness,  and  hatred  to  a  god 
of  evil.  We  can  not  escape  from  good  and  evil.  As 
our  material  life  is  unalterably  bound  up  with  day  and 
night,  so  is  our  spiritual  life  with  good  and  evil.  This 
is  recognized  by  the  Emperor  of  China,  who  places  over 
all  his  ofBcials  and  mandarins  two  chief  ministers,  who 
alone  have  access  to  him  at  all  times — the  one  the  "coun- 
selor of  good,"  whose  duty  it  is  to  report  good  deeds, 
and  propose  rewards;  and  the  other  the  "counselor  of 
evil,"  who  reports  evil,  and  demands  punishment. 
Whence  arises  this  division  of  the  world  into  two  halves, 
a  fact  of  which  materialism  offers  no  explanation? 

For  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  the  movements  of 
atoms  can  be  morally  good  or  evil.  No  one  has  ever 
succeeded  in  proving  the  existence  of  the  moral  prin- 
ciple in  matter;  but  if  it  is  not  intrinsic,  whence  is  it, 
and  how  comes  it  to  exist  in  the  various  manifestations 
of  matter?  Or,  to  put  the  main  question:  How  comes 
the  notion  of  a  God,  who  rewards  good  and  punishes 
evil,  into  the  world  at  all?  How  came  the  primal  sub- 
stance, "the  infallible  and  all-wise"  universal  ether,  to 
create  a  God  who  affirms  this  primal  substance  to  be 


304  Science  and  Christianity 

his  creation?  For  whether  there  is  a  God  or  not,  the 
belief  in  him  undeniably  exists,  and  dominates  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  If  all  is  only  the  product  of  the  all- 
just  and  all-wise  ether,  then  this  belief  in  God  is  also 
just  and  wise.  Herewith  the  cause  of  strife  is  removed, 
and  there  is  an  end  to  all  hostiUties! 

Conscious  of  his  weakness  on  this  point,  the  ma- 
terialist is  pleased  to  represent  morality — by  a  one- 
sided interpretation  of  historical  and  anthropological 
facts — as  the  gradual  and  variable  product  of  custom, 
climate,  manner  of  life,  etc.  That  it  most  certainly  is 
not.  Four  thousand  years  ago  the  same  ideas  of  mo- 
rality prevailed  among  Indians,  Chaldees,  and  Egyp- 
tians as  among  ourselves  at  the  present  day.  This  is 
clearly  seen  from  their  legal  and  religious  books.  Only 
their  conception  of  it  was  larger-hearted,  to  judge  from 
the  Egyptian  prohibition,  *'Do  not  insult  the  deaf;  do 
not  abuse  the  slave  to  his  master;"  and  the  legal  dic- 
tum, "He  who  sees  a  crime  committed,  without  pre- 
venting it  to  the  best  of  his  power,  is  guilty  of  the 
crime."  That  is  a  beautiful  Greek  idea,  "The  unfortu- 
nate are  sacred."  "The  stranger  and  the  poor  belong 
to  Zeus,"  says  Eumoeos.  And  how  grand,  how  far 
above  the  morality  of  the  present  day  is  that  of  Job ! 
On  all  the  epitaphs  of  antiquity  the  dead  man  is  praised 
for  having  practiced  virtue  and  justice,  spoken  the  truth, 
done  good,  and  eschewed  evil.  As  there  has  at  no  time 
been  a  nation  of  atheists,  so  there  has  never  been  a 
nation  which  did  not  honor  virtue  and  despise  vice, 
however  vicious  it  might  be.  The  most  immoral  of 
peoples  have  reverenced  purity;  those  most  given  to 
falsehood  and  cunning  have  honored  truth;  the  most 


Materialism  305 

cruel  have  highly  esteemed  gentleness  and  mercy.  At 
no  time,  even  among  the  most  savage  and  degraded 
races,  however  coarse  and  brutal  the  individual,  how- 
ever base  the  people  in  general,  has  ingratitude  been 
extolled,  contempt  of  the  gods  or  of  parents,  or  in- 
subordination been  tolerated.  Never  has  maternal  love, 
wifely  fidelity,  or  manly  courage  been  lightly  esteemed, 
or  cowardice,  perjury,  and  hypocrisy  honored.  Socrates 
asked  Eutyphron,  "What!  hast  thou  ever  heard  of  a 
man  who  doubted  that  he  who  had  unjustly  killed  an- 
other, or  done  any  other  act  of  unrighteousness,  must 
sufifer  punishment?"  At  no  time  has  self-interest  been 
considered  a  sufficient  excuse  for  the  infringement  of 
the  moral  law.  "May  the  memory  of  him  perish," 
cries  the  Greek  sage,  "who  first  dared  to  make  a  distinc- 
tion between  what  is  just  and  what  is  profitable!" 

It  has  been  left  for  our  "enlightened"  age  to  found 
a  morality  upon  the  varying  subjective  principle  of 
utility  and  advantage.  Do  not  kill  your  neighbor,  that 
you  may  not  be  killed  by  others.  Do  not  steal,  lest 
others  steal  from  you.  What  a  wretched  thing  is  po- 
lice-regulation morality,  especially  compared  with  the 
grand  principles  of  Christianity,  "Love  your  enemies; 
bless  them  that  curse  you;  do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use  you  and 
persecute  you,  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven;  for  he  maketh  his  sun  to 
rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the 
just  and  on  the  unjust." 

All  the  virtues,  says  the  materialist,  are  the  out- 
come of  egoism.  In  that  case  it  must  have  been  a 
primal  egoism,  like  the  primal  substance,  the  primal 
20 


3o6  Science  and  Christianity 

germ,  the  primal  cell  and  primal  man,  very  different 
from  the  present;  for  that  egoism  is  nowadays  the  par- 
ent of  no  virtues,  is  pretty  generally  acknowledged.  Be- 
sides, egoism  is  as  difficult  of  materialistic  explanation  as 
love  itself.  Nothing  is,  in  itself,  either  good  or  bad,  he 
says  further.  Then  practice  decides  it,  the  end  justifies 
the  means.  To  be  logically  consistent,  we  must  do  a 
little  evil  if  much  good  is  to  come  of  it.  A  miser  is 
lying  ill.  This  man,  a  plague  to  those  around  him, 
whom  he  starves,  possesses  an  immense  fortune,  which, 
at  his  death,  will  fall  to  his  wife,  who  would  use  it 
for  the  relief  of  hundreds  of  poor  people,  and  to  his 
children,  who  are  sadly  in  need  of  education.  Let  the 
doctor  resolve  him  into  his  chemical  constituents  by 
a  strong  dose  of  morphia.  Why  not?  In  this  case 
the  welfare  of  the  many  is  of  more  consequence  than 
the  will  of  the  individual;  and  this  individual  will,  at  the 
same  time,  be  released  from  all  misery. 

What  of  remorse?  How  comes  the  brain,  a  Chris- 
tian physician  asks,  to  inflict  on  itself  moral  chastise- 
ment by  the  vibration  of  its  atoms,  and  to  secrete  re- 
morse as  the  liver  secretes  bile?  Suppose  that,  years 
ago,  I,  a  man  absolutely  penniless,  had  met  an  elderly 
tourist  in  a  lonely  mountain  pass;  he  lamented  that  he 
was  alone  in  the  world  and  weary  of  life;  then  carelessly 
let  me  see  a  pocket-book  full  of  banknotes,  and  turned 
to  look  over  the  precipice.  I  took  the  pocketbook  from 
him,  and  gave  him  a  push.  In  another  second  his  body 
lay,  a  lifeless  mass,  at  the  foot  of  the  rock.  No  one 
saw  the  deed,  and  no  inquiries  were  ever  made.  The 
money  laid  the  foundation  of  my  fortune,  and  I  am  now 
a  man  of  position.    What  is  the  reason  that,  since  that 


Materialism  307 

time,  I  have  not  been  able  to  sleep;  that  I  would  give 
the  world  full  of  gold  to  see  him  standing  there  alive? 
The  materialist  tells  us  the  destruction  of  the  weaker 
by  the  stronger  is  the  fundamental  law  of  evolution. 
What  is  useful  and  advantageous  is  good;  what  is  use- 
less is  bad.  But  who  is  to  decide  what  is  useful  and 
what  is  not?  He  whom  it  concerns,  of  course;  for  only 
he  can  know.  We  see  that  this  principle  leads  to  con- 
sequences anything  but  desirable;  for  what  is  very  ad- 
vantageous to  my  neighbor  may  be  harmful  to  me. 
How  powerless  utilitarianism  is  as  a  governing  prin- 
ciple we  see  daily  in  the  case  of  thousands  who  bring 
ruin  upon  their  families  by  drunkenness  and  vice,  al- 
though they  are  perfectly  well  aware  that  the  life  they 
are  leading  is  in  no  wise  profitable.  The  self-interest 
of  the  Roman  and  the  American  planter  in  the  health 
and  well-being  of  their  slaves  never  sufficed  to  restrain 
them  from  ill-treatment  of  them,  and  even  murder. 
What  did  Nero  and  Ivan  the  Terrible,  to  whom  the 
torture  of  their  fellow-men  gave  exquisite  pleasure,  care 
for  utility? 

The  Christian  conception  of  morality,  which  holds 
that  there  is  an  absolute  good  and  an  absolute  evil,  in 
accordance  with  which  the  world  will  be  judged,  is  much 
more  utilitarian  than  utilitarianism  itself,  which,  after 
all,  can  only  be  recognized  in  an  imperfect  and  one- 
sided manner;  for  every  one  must  admit  that,  so  long 
as  the  world  has  lasted,  this  principle  has  done  more 
good  and  prevented  more  evil,  is,  therefore,  more  use- 
ful and  profitable  than  any  materialism. 

His  indignation  when  his  doctrines  are  stigmatized 
as  immoral,  and  his  endeavors  to  give  it  a  moral  signifi- 


3o8  Science  and  Christianity 

cance,  show  how  Httle  able  the  materialist  is  to  Hberate 
himself  from  the  categorical  imperative  of  morality, 
from  the  inward  command,  "Do  good,  and  eschew 
evil."  If  he  wishes  to  be  consistent,  he  ought  to  reply 
to  the  charge  of  immorality,  "There  is  no  such  thing 
as  morality  or  immorality,  only  utilitarianism."  We 
can  agree  to  the  proposition  that  "what  is  useful  is 
good,  and  what  is  unprofitable  is  evil,"  if  they  will  allow 
that  the  fear  of  God  is  profitable,  and  sin  what  is  un- 
profitable. "Sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people,"  says  the 
Scripture.  And  so,  too,  with  the  saying,  "Philanthropy 
is  true  morality."  We  put  before  this  precept,  which 
is  more  clearly  and  sharply  formulated  in  the  Bible,  thus  : 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  the  still 
higher  one,  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  with  all  thy  mind,  and 
with  all  thy  strength." 

In  connection  with  the  morality  of  his  own  doc- 
trine, the  materialist  loves  to  rail  at  the  God  of  the 
Christians,  who  is  so  cruel  and  sends  upon  men  so 
much  sorrow,  misery,  and  trouble,  famine  and  pesti- 
lence, earthquake  and  flood,  hurricanes  and  misfortunes 
of  all  kinds  by  sea  and  land.  After  the  great  theater- 
fire  in  Vienna  a  materialistic  paper  wrote  with  rage, 
"This  God,  who  is  continually  pouring  out  misfortune 
upon  his  creatures;"  and  after  the  terrible  fire  at  the 
Bazaar  in  Paris  another  spoke  of  him  as  "the  Moloch 
who  burns  innocent  women."  But  the  next  moment 
they  teach  us  that  this  God  does  not  exist  at  all,  and 
that  it  is  their  god — the  primal  substance,  alias  uni- 
versal ether,  or  world-soul — who  does  everything. 
Their  god,  then,  is  no  better  than  ours;  and  we  are  as 


Materialism  309 

much  justified  in  abusing  that  stupid,  blind,  deaf,  and 
dumb  idiot,  the  primal  substance,  who  sends  so  much 
sorrow,  misery,  famine  and  pestilence,  earthquakes  and 
floods,  upon  us.  If  we  must  endure  chastisement,  we 
would  rather  have  it  from  a  personal  God,  and  for  a 
particular  purpose,  than  from  a  something  which  hits 
out  blindly,  knowing  neither  why  nor  wherefore.  There 
is  one  great  difference  which  our  opponents  forget  to 
take  into  consideration,  and  that  is  that  while  their 
god  has,  from  all  time,  sent  sorrow  and  pain  upon  his 
imhappy  creatures,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  still,  luck- 
ily for  all,  he  finally  congeals;  and  our  God  sends  for 
a  second  of  eternity  sorrow  and  pain  for  our  chastise- 
ment and  our  betterment;  and  He  who  understands 
all  the  desires  and  longings  of  the  hearts  which  he  cre- 
ated promises  ''There  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither 
sorrow  nor  crying;  neither  shall  there  be  any  more 
pain;  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away.  Behold, 
I  make  all  things  new." 


The  materialist  is  very  inconsistent  In  his  dislike,  or, 
to  speak  plainly,  his  hatred  of  godliness  and  religion 
altogether.  Spiller  calls  those  who  believe  in  miracles 
"the  most  stupid  of  all  men."  (Luther,  Goethe,  and 
others,  are  pregnant  examples!)  The  unknown  author 
of  the  ''Confession  of  Faith  of  a  Modern  Man  of  Sci- 
ence" asserts  that  "all  the  praying  under  the  sun  has 
never  done  away  with  one  tittle  of  misery  or  vice,"  al- 
though thousands  of  honest  men  testify  to  the  con- 
trary from  their  own   experience;  and  the  Salvation 


3IO  Science  and  Christianity 

Army,  whatever  one's  opinion  of  it  may  be,  has  un- 
doubtedly, by  means  of  prayer,  reclaimed  hundreds 
from  drunkenness  and  vice.  The  celebrated  author  of 
"Kraft  und  Stoff''  exclaims:  ''There  are  no  spirits  of 
any  kind.  No  man  has  ever  been  raised  from  the  dead." 
How  does  he  know?  And  that  they  call  exact  investi- 
gation, unprejudiced  science!  This  hatred,  this  rage 
against  religion,  does  not  say  much  for  the  conviction 
of  materialism.  It  rather  bears  witness  to  a  feeling 
of  its  own  weakness  and  powerlessness.  How,  in  fact, 
can  materialism  combat,  refute,  and  stamp  out  the  law 
of  Christ  with  the  laws  of  nature;  the  ''power  from  on 
high"  with  the  forces  of  nature;  the  Holy  Spirit  with 
discussions  of  the  most  learned  description;  love,  faith, 
and  hope  by  means  of  the  differential  and  infinitesimal 
calculus?  The  materialist  himself  is  aware  that  his 
heaviest  artillery  does  not  reach  to  heaven,  and  every 
Christian  worthy  of  the  name  presents  to  him  an  in- 
vulnerable front.  Napoleon  I  expressed  the  opinion 
that  "no  one  can  stand  against  public  opinion."  The 
Christian,  however,  is  superior  even  to  public  opinion, 
as  every  martyr  has,  by  his  actions,  shown.  "He  that 
is  in  you  is  greater  than  he  that  is  in  the  world,"  says 
Christ. 

With  this  prejudice  and  dislike  to  all  that  savors 
of  religion,  the  materialist  stands  in  sharp  contradiction 
to  his  system.  If  all  existence  is,  as  already  remarked, 
only  the  necessary  and  useful  product  of  a  substance — 
unconscious,  it  is  true,  but  working  with  absolute 
logic — Christianity  and  all  other  religions  can  form  no 
exception;  and  the  materialist  ought  to  look  with  in- 
terest and  sympathy  upon  this  world-ruling  phenome- 


Materialism  311 

noil  as  one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  his  beloved 
eternal  matter.  Hegel's  dictum,  "Whatever  is,  is  right," 
is  accepted  by  materialists  like  Spiller.  Then  religion, 
too,  is  right.  If,  as  Tyndall  believes,  the  germs  of  all 
rehgions,  as  of  all  other  ideas,  were  once  latent  in  a 
fiery  cloud,  how  can  we  Christians  help  it  that  these 
germs  have  developed  with  a  vitality  so  much  greater 
than  those  of  the  materialistic  theory?  Delusions,  as 
he  calls  them,  are,  from  the  consistent  materialist's 
standpoint,  absurd.  In  the  realm  of  matter,  he  says, 
there  are  only  forces  and  natural  laws,  causes  and  ef- 
fects. How  comes  it  that  the  metaphysical  ideas  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  of  an  invisible  and  yet  powerful  spirit-world,  of 
miracles  and  miraculous  cures,  of  demoniacal  possession 
and  prophecy,  are  found  among  the  simplest  and  most 
elementary  races,  such  as  the  Tunguses  and  the  Lapps? 
On  their  assumption,  it  can  be  nothing  else  than  the 
work  of  matter  and  natural  laws. 

But  even  if  all  religions  were  founded  on  delusions, 
the  materialist  who  believes  that  one  day,  with  the 
ultimate  refrigeration  of  the  universe,  all  notions,  be 
they  delusion  or  truth,  will  be  resolved  into  a  hydrogen 
nebula,  ought  to  be  at  least  perfectly  indifferent  even 
to  a  delusion.  Hartmann  says:  ''All  belief,  even  this 
belief  of  mine,  is  of  no  value.''  But  if  it  is  a  fact — and 
history  affords  examples  in  plenty — that  these  sup- 
posed delusions  have  enabled  thousands,  nay,  millions, 
to  live  patiently  and  to  die  happy,  the  materialist  ought 
to  hail  it  as  a  grand  opiate  and  anaesthetic  for  the  ills 
of  life.  He  ought  not  to  begrudge  a  sufferer  this  rem- 
edy, which  has  helped  so  many  to  live  and  die;  he  ought 


312  Science  and  Christianity 

to  recommend  it,  and  make  use  of  it  himself,  especially 
as  a  materialist  has  never  been  known  to  die  in  joyful 
resignation  of  himself  to  eternal  matter,  in  triumphant 
hope  of  the  ''entropy"  of  the  universe.  Death,  he 
teaches,  is  the  end  of  everything.  Consequently  no 
one  v^ill  be  able  to  see,  in  the  subsequent  combinations 
of  hydrogen,  oxygen,  etc.,  into  which  he  will  presently 
be  resolved,  whether  they  once  formed  a  materialist  or 
a  Christian.  According  to  him,  all  progress  and  the 
light  of  science  is  only  an  unconscious  sport  of  matter, 
which  also  will  come  to  an  end  with  our  earth.  It 
ought,  therefore,  to  be  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference 
what  attitude  one  assumes  towards  these  purely  ma- 
terial phenomena.  "Let  us  eat  and  drink;  for  to-mor- 
row we  die,"  remains,  whatever  may  be  said  to  the  con- 
trary, the  only  view  of  life  thoroughly  consistent  with 
materialism. 

If  we  take  the  words,  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them,"  as  the  test,  and  apply  it  to  the  two  principal  sys- 
tems of  belief,  the  theistic  and  the  atheistic,  we  shall 
find  an  overwhelming  balance  on  the  side  of  the  former. 
This  fact  alone  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  convince  those 
who  have  neither  time  nor  education  enough  to  esti- 
mate their  philosophical  value,  of  the  truth  of  the  former 
and  the  worthlessness  and  falsity  of  the  latter.  Where 
has  anything  great,  good,  true,  or  beautiful  been  done 
or  made  which  was  not  based  ultimately  on  the  belief 
in  God,  immortality,  future  recompense — on  the  belief, 
in  short,  that  behind  this  visible,  tangible,  material,  and 
transient  world  there  is  one  higher  and  eternal,  of  which 
the  visible  is  but  an  image  and  a  symbol? 

How  have  nations  become  great  and  happy,  mighty 


Materialism  313 

and  honored;  and  how  long  have  they  remained  so? 
By  placing  above  material  prosperity,  above  wealth  and 
luxury,  above  expediency,  the  ideal  possessions,  the 
fear  of  God,  justice,  and  virtue,  the  immortality  of  the 
soul;  and  they  have  remained  great  only  as  long  as 
they  held  to  their  beliefs.  When  did  they  lose  in  en- 
ergy and  morality?  When  did  they  begin  to  degener- 
ate in  intellectual  superiority  and  power,  in  self-confi- 
dence and  firmness  of  character,  to  sink  into  avarice 
and  sensuality?  As  soon  as  they  became  materialists. 
That  is  an  historical,  universally-known  fact,  which  no 
amount  of  scientific  and  critical  argument  can  con- 
trovert. 

Where  are  the  great  men  of  atheism,  its  patriarchs 
and  prophets  and  apostles,  its  heroes  and  lawgivers? 
Has  it  ever  produced  a  man  who,  like  Confucius,  Bud- 
dha, Mahomet,  gained  and  retained  for  centuries  the 
allegiance  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  human  beings  to 
his  doctrines?  Can  It  show  a  lawgiver  like  Solon  or 
Lycurgus,  not  to  mention  Moses,  under  whose  Iron 
law  a  race  has  bent  for  thirty-five  hundred  years,  or  a 
poet  like  Homer,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Racine, 
Goethe?  Has  It  one  artist  like  Michael  Angelo,  that 
great  sculptor,  painter,  architect,  and  poet,  some  of 
whose  sonnets  are  fervent  prayers;  like  Bach,  that 
earnest  Christian  and  mighty  monarch  in  the  realm  of 
music;  like  Handel  or  Haydn;  or  a  hero  like  Luther? 
How  are  facts  to  be  reconciled  with  the  favorite  asser- 
tion of  the  materialist  that  religion  has  a  stultifying 
effect? 

Materialism  is  at  variance  with  the  whole  universe, 
with  the  facts  outside  us,  and  with  the  soul  and  Its 


314  Science  and  Christianity 

voice  within  us.  Man  sees  how  matter  and  all  exist- 
ing things  rush  hither  and  thither  in  ceaseless  course 
and  flow,  ever  hastening,  ever  striving  in  the  great 
race  through  the  ages  of  time  and  the  abysses  of  space 
towards  an  unknown  fixed  and  eternal  goal,  where 
all  desires  and  yearnings  will  be  satisfied;  and  he  sees 
himself,  too,  driven  by  mysterious  powers,  thirsting  after 
light  and  truth,  after  power  and  freedom  and  life,  sweep- 
ing like  a  storm-wind  over  the  earth,  emerging  from 
one  dark  abyss  to  disappear,  after  a  few  years,  into  an- 
other; and  he  feels,  deep  down  in  his  heart,  where  lie 
the  springs  of  life,  that  this  running  and  hastening  has 
a  goal  and  a  purpose,  is  not  senseless  and  useless.  Sur- 
veying human  history,  we  see  how  life  has,  in  all  ages, 
sprung  from  the  ideas  of  the  beautiful,  the  true,  and 
the  good,  and  how  all  races  of  mankind  have  derived 
these  ideas  from  the  existence  of  a  personal  God.  We 
see  further  how  all  that  is  great,  noble,  and  lasting  in 
the  world  comes  from  men  who  believed  in  God  and 
acted  on  the  idea  of  God,  even  though  they  were  by  no 
means  Christians.  All  the  conquerors  and  generals, 
statesmen  and  lawgivers,  poets  and  artists,  sages  and 
scientists,  on  whose  intellectual  capital  man  has  for  four 
thousand  years  been  drawing,  in  whose  beams  he  has 
basked,  believed  in  a  God!  And  these  men,  we  are 
told,  and  the  men  of  God,  whose  names  are  graven  as 
with  a  diamond  in  the  history  of  the  world,  the  patri- 
archs, prophets,  and  apostles,  Abraham,  Moses,  Elijah, 
and  Christ  himself,  were  simply  poor,  blind  enthusiasts, 
self-deluded  fools !  The  materialist  says  there  is  no  God. 
Then  certainly  we  ask,  wherefore  religion  and  morality, 
justice  and  order,  art  and  science,  idealism,  poetry,  en- 


Materialism  315 

lightenment,  and  progress?  Let  us  eat  and  drink;  for 
to-morrow  we  die! 

If,  however,  you  are  suffering  from  cancer,  so  that 
you  can  neither  eat  nor  drink,  or  if  you  have  suffered  so 
severely  that  all  joy  is  dead  within  you,  or  if  you  are 
living  broken-down  and  infirm,  with  one  foot  in  the 
grave,  I  know  not  what  to  say.  You  have  heard  it  from 
men  of  learning  on  scientific  grounds,  there  is  no  God. 
Despair,  then,  and  die !  What  does  eternal  matter  care 
about  your  weal  or  woe?  It  is  not  even  conscious  of 
our  existence.  Despair  and  die !  For  the  gloomy  gos- 
pel of  a  so-called  enlightenment  runs  thus:  Woe  unto 
them  who  have  not  tasted  happiness  here;  for  there  is 
no  other  life.  Woe  unto  those  who  suffer  injustice  here; 
for  neither  hereafter  shall  justice  be  done  them.  Woe 
unto  those  that  weep;  for  they  shall  not  be  comforted. 
We  come  from  nothing,  we  and  all  our  doings  are  noth- 
ing, and  to  the  eternal  nothing  we  shall  shortly  return. 

On  the  other  hand,  faith  in  God  sheds  light  over 
the  whole  creation,  over  all  life.  "In  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heaven  and  the  earth.''  If  we  have  been  stand- 
ing, incredulous  and  unsatisfied,  face  to  face  with  the 
assertion  that  consciousness  is  generated  by  the  uncon- 
scious, utility  by  the  purposeless,  spirit  by  matter,  life 
by  death,  then  our  heart  burns  within  us,  and  our  spirit 
rejoices,  feeling  it  has  found  the  truth  when  we  hear  the 
good  tidings  that  these  temporal  things  are  the  outcome 
of  things  eternal,  the  transient  and  incomplete  had  its 
origin  from  an  everlasting  Being;  that  the  drop  of  earthly 
life  has  trickled  down  from  a  shoreless  and  fathomless 
sea  of  life;  that  our  feeble  light  shines  to  us  from  an 
eternal  sun;  and  that  the  mite  of  joy  and  happiness  for 


3i6  Science  and  Christianity 

which  our  heart  yearns  is  the  faint  glimmer  of  an  ever- 
lasting bliss  which  shall  one  day  satisfy  our  soul.  In 
such  a  belief  there  is  sense  and  harmony  and  true  rea- 
son. Light,  we  see,  is  stronger  than  darkness,  yes  than 
no,  love  than  hate,  life  than  death.  This  belief  is  in 
harmony  with  the  universe,  with  the  sight  of  the  suns 
in  the  starry  vault,  and  the  flower  by  the  wayside,  with 
the  song  of  the  lark  and  the  wood-bird,  with  all  that 
we  call  life  upon  the  earth!  We  know  now  why  and 
whence  there  is  in  all  created  things  that  mighty  long- 
ing for  the  infinite,  that  aspiration  after  something 
higher  and  deeper,  that  joy  in  light  and  action  which 
we  call  life.  Every  creature  yearns  towards  it  source. 
And  by  this  intense  longing  after  light  and  fullness  of 
life  we  may  recognize  that  we  have  sprung  from  a  living 
God  in  everlasting  light,  and  not  from  dead  and  gloomy 
matter;  for  in  that  case  it  would  be  death,  and  not  life, 
that  we  should  long  for. 

He,  however,  who  has  seen,  or,  better  still,  him- 
self experienced  how  a  Christian,  perhaps  dying  of  an 
incurable  disease,  tortured  with  pain  day  and  night,  with 
cares  pressing  heavily,  the  present  scarcely  endurable, 
the  future  to  human  eyes  so  dark  and  hopeless,  human 
help  so  powerless,  can  yet  rejoice  in  the  sure  and  cer- 
tain hope,  "I  shall  see  God  face  to  face,  and  live  with 
him  in  eternal  bliss,"  will  not  any  longer  be  impressed 
by  the  scientific  discourse  of  the  materialist.  He  sees 
with  his  eyes;  he  has  tangible  proof;  he  feels  in  his 
heart  that  here  powerful  forces  of  the  unseen  world  are 
at  work,  before  which  poverty,  disgrace,  care,  and  pain 
vanish  like  mist  before  the  sun;  and  he  can  afford  to 
smile  at  the  assertion  that  these  are  but  illusions. 
♦  ♦  ♦ 


Materialism  317 

We  here  take  leave  of  materialism,  more  disappointed 
and  saddened  than  indignant;  for  we  remember  the  time 
when  we  approached  it  full  of  the  expectation  of  finding 
it  a  temple — of  Baal,  it  is  true,  but  still  a  temple.  We 
expected  to  enter  an  imposing  hall,  supported  by  fixed 
and  firm  principles,  as  by  giant  columns,  overhead  a 
spacious  vaulting  of  firmly-ordered  systems,  into  which, 
by  large  and  many-colored  windows,  streamed  the  light 
of  science,  to  pass  onward  to  the  choir,  where,  assem- 
bled round  the  altar  of  science,  venerable  priests,  in 
white  garments,  intoned,  in  polyphonal  choir,  a  hymn 
in  honor  of  their  goddess. 

How  different  was  the  reality !  We  found  ourselves 
in  a  tumult  of  contentious  disputants,  each  of  whom 
strove  to  outcry  the  others,  and  thought  we  had  stum- 
bled upon  a  fair  or  a  country  wake,  where,  from  every 
booth,  there  resounded  a  different  cry.  Here  the  won- 
derful primordial  cell,  which  evolved  everything  from 
itself;  here  the  unknowing,  but  all-wise  ether;  here  genu- 
ine life-germs,  direct  from  space,  guaranteed  ten  million 
years  old;  here  the  plastidule  or  thinking  atom,  the  lat- 
est novelty!  And  upon  an  eminence  stood  a  stately 
building,  fast  closed,  with  the  hieroglyphic  inscription, 
"The  Seven  World-problems,  or  the  Great  Igno- 
rabimus !" 

And  this  conception  of  nature,  which  talks  only  of 
matter  and  force,  which  would  refer  everything  to  them, 
and  yet  is  obliged  to  confess  that  it  knows  not  what 
either  the  one  or  the  other  really  is;  this  wisdom,  which 
has  no  sympathy  and  no  answer  for  all  the  longings  and 
questionings  of  the  human  heart,  which  calls  the  best 
thing  in  life  a  delusion,  and  the  deepest  a  snare,  and 


3i8  Science  and  Christianity 

for  which  suicide  is  the  aim  and  end  of  creation — ^this 
philosophy,  which  knows  neither  faith,  hope,  nor  love, 
for  which  there  is  nothing  absolutely  true  or  beautiful 
or  good,  which  would  deny  away  the  soul  in  my  body 
and  the  heart  in  my  breast — this  uncertain,  hypothetical, 
and  arbitrary  system,  which  has  no  explanation  to  offer 
of  God  or  the  world,  spirit  or  matter,  life  or  death,  art 
or  science,  guilt  or  justice,  morality,  conscience,  or  re- 
ligion, su-ch  claims  to  be  a  scientific  system! 

Recently  some  have  maintained  that  it  has  been  over- 
come by  science.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  Though 
natural  science  is  beginning  to  find  out  that  the  mate- 
rialism of  men  like  Moleschott,  Vogt,  Haeckel,  and 
Biichner  leads  it  into  a  blind  alley,  it  has  not  yet 
entered  upon  the  right  way.  Its  vague  and  arbi- 
trary, dualistic  and  pantheistic,  atheistic  or  theistic 
notions  of  the  All,  of  spirit  and  matter,  idea  and 
substance,  essence  and  manifestation,  energy,  vital- 
ism, conscious  and  unconscious  mind,  or  the  dual- 
ism which  always  runs  to  monism,  attributing  to  the 
most  minute  particles  of  brain-matter  the  qualities  of 
the  soul  as  "companion-phenomena,"  and,  according 
to  the  old  saying  of  Humphrey  Davy,  "making  the 
brain  a  house  which  inhabits  itself," — that  is  no  better 
than  the  universal  ether  of  Spiller,  who  has  a  large  meas- 
ure of  scorn  for  the  materialism  of  others.  As  long  as 
any  system  fails  to  rise  to  the  clear  position  of  a  living 
personal  God  as  Center  and  Sun  of  the  universe,  as 
Source  of  all  life  and  consciousness,  it  remains  at  bot- 
tom, and,  as  concerns  its  weight  in  the  world,  material- 
istic and  opposed  to  reHgion. 

Of  what  avail  is  the  merely  theoretical  and  nominal 


Materialism  319 

overthrow  of  materialism  in  science  when  we  can  not 
help  seeing  how  it  is  actually  spreading  in  the  life  and 
practice  of  the  present? 

What  do  modern  novels  and  plays  and  art  proclaim? 
What  do  thousands  of  scientists,  authors,  poets,  orators, 
write,  teach,  and  preach?  What  does  one  breathe  in 
the  street  and  in  society  but  this  enHghtenment,  which 
is  taken  for  granted  in  all  educated  persons,  and  to 
which  the  thoughtless  crowd  conforms,  and  which  is 
nothing  but  the  dominion  of  matter  over  spirit,  or  even 
the  flat  denial  of  the  latter,  and  the  setting  up  of  enjoy- 
ment, as  the  highest  aim  of  existence?  And  yet  because 
man  is  made  up  of  body  and  soul,  and  his  life  consists 
of  the  material  and  the  spiritual,  a  thoroughly  convinced 
and  consistent  materialist  is  scarcely  to  be  found,  per- 
haps does  not  exist.  Let  a  man  be  ever  so  deeply  ab- 
sorbed in  matter,  he  has  nevertheless  moments  in  which 
he  can  not  deny  his  soul. 

For  this  reason  materialism  will  never  become  a 
world-power.  The  world  has  never  been  materialistic. 
A  hundred  million  Negroes  and  Arabs  in  Africa,  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  Asiatics,  constituting  more 
than  the  half  of  mankind,  are  not  materiaHsts.  The 
tiller  of  the  ground  is  never  a  materialist,  nor  the  fisher- 
man and  the  sailor.  Fifty  millions  of  Russian  moujiks 
and  three  million  Australians,  Eskimos,  and  Tunguses, 
Kaffirs  and  Indians,  are  none  of  them  materialists.  The 
savage,  the  child  of  Nature,  never  is  so.  They  all  be- 
lieve in  God  and  in  the  devil,  in  a  future  life,  in  prayer, 
and  in  the  spirit-world.  All  of  them,  however  Ignorant 
and  degraded  they  may  be,  would  prefer  to  do  good 
and  eschew  evil,  fear  future  punishment,  and  hope  for 


320  Science  and  Christianity 

future  bliss;  for  they  live  naturally  amid  nature,  and 
feel  the  breath  of  the  invisible  Creator,  and  see  his  foot- 
prints. And  as  no  child  is  a  materialist,  neither  is  the 
aged  man.  Cicero  tells  us  that  before  death,  even  the 
infidel  becomes  a  believer.  Only  where  men,  artificially 
pressed  together  like  the  cells  of  the  honeycomb,  lose 
their  original  form,  the  soul  is  blinded,  and  falls  into 
artificial  ways  of  thinking.  If  they  were  transplanted 
from  the  city  to  the  desert,  to  the  mountain,  or  the 
ocean,  these  men  would  cease  to  be  materialists. 

Materialism  was  never  the  normal  faith  of  the  normal 
man,  and  never  will  be  so;  for  it  ignores  the  great  ques- 
tions which  agitate  humanity.  It  takes  from  man  all 
that  makes  life  worth  living,  and  robs  death  of  its  sting, 
and  gives  in  its  stead  hypotheses  built  on  air  and  mist, 
notwithstanding  all  assurances  that  they  are  founded 
on  well-tried  facts.  It  has  always  made  its  appearance 
in  times  of  spiritual  corruption  as  the  product  of  decay 
and  disease.  As  soon  as  the  world — that  is  to  say  the 
nation  which,  for  the  time  being,  occupied  the  foremost 
place — left  the  way  in  which  God  commanded  it  to 
walk,  and,  instead  of  living  in  sympathy  with  Nature, 
became  absorbed  in  the  one-sided  and  exaggerated  pur- 
suit of  one  idea — such  as  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  the 
worship  of  beauty  apart  from  goodness;  as  the  Phoeni- 
cians and  Carthaginians  in  commerce;  Rome  in  the  con- 
quest of  the  world,  accomplished  by  right  or  might — 
this  one-sidedness  took  its  revenge.  An  obstruction  of 
the  life-giving  sap  set  in,  with  high  fever,  and  at  its 
height  a  crass  materialism  made  its  appearance,  period- 
ically accompanied  by  depravity  of  morals,  falsehood  and 
hypocrisy,  bribery  and  corruption — a  state  of  things  of 


Materialism  321 

which  we  have  a  faint  foreshadowing  in  France  and 
America  at  the  present  day. 

The  Romans,  sated  with  conquest,  sunk  in  volup- 
tuousness, burst,  we  are  told,  into  loud  applause  when 
an  actor  exclaimed:  "After  death,  nothing!  Death  it- 
self, nothing!"  But  the  provinces  by  whose  corn  and 
by  whose  labor  they  were  nourished  still  venerated  the 
gods;  and  when  they  became  contaminated,  and  lost 
their  faith,  the  empire  fell  to  pieces  under  the  stroke  of 
the  Barbarian.  The  Vandal  king,  Genseric,  asked  by 
his  helmsman,  "Whither?"  replied,  "Take  me  to  the 
peoples  with  whom  God  is  wroth!"  It  was  the  same 
story  before  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution.  A 
few  thousand  Parisians — court  and  nobility — spent 
their  lives  in  gay  and  careless  mockery  of  God  and  the 
world,  while  the  millions  dragged  out  a  wretched  exist- 
ence, made  up  of  labor  and  tears.  Then  the  storm 
broke.  The  Revolutionists,  it  is  true,  cast  aside  God 
and  religion  as  part  of  the  old  rotten  order;  but  after 
a  time  they  reinstated  him,  having  found  out  that  with- 
out him  the  world  would  not  go  round.  Chateaubriand 
wrote  his  "Genie  du  Christianisme,"  and  Lamartine  his 
"Harmonies."  "The  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  but 
they  grind  exceeding  small!" 

Materialism  will  never  become  a  power  in  the  world. 
It  is  not  made  of  the  right  stuff.  Men  do  not  live  and 
die  for  the  primal  germ  or  the  thinking  atom.  There  is 
altogether  too  much  negation  and  too  little  affirmation 
about  it;  and  negation  never  leads  to  strength.  For  the 
deep  thinker  it  is  too  shallow;  for  the  masses  estranged 
from  God;  for  the  anarchist  of  the  future  it  is  too  tame 
and  languid.    When  they  have  sufficiently  criticised  and 

2X 


322  Science  and  Christianity 

despised  the  gift — Creation — it  becomes,  in  time,  a  neces- 
sity to  attack  the  Giver;  for  to  intrench  one's  self  be- 
hind primordial  cell  and  atom  is  a  mild  and  invertebrate 
form  of  godlessness.  The  fools  say  in  their  heart,  "There 
is  no  God;"  but  Satan  cries  to  God,  ''Touch  them,  and 
they  v^rill  curse  thee  to  thy  face."  (Job  i.)  And  the 
world  ripens  to  that  falling  off  from  God,  of  which  it 
is  written  in  Psalm  ii :  *'The  kings  of  the  earth  set  them- 
selves, and  the  rulers  take  counsel  together  against  the 
Lord  and  against  his  anointed,  saying.  Let  us  break 
their  bands  asunder,  and  cast  away  their  cords  from  us." 
And  a  hatred  of  God  will  be  developed,  such  as  is  only 
possible  through  the  consciousness  that  there  is  a  God; 
for  where  there  is  nothing,  it  is  unreasonable  and  impos- 
sible to  hate.  This  hatred  is  already  to  be  seen  in  flashes 
on  the  horizon,  as  the  following  quotation  from  a  social- 
ist paper,  the  Volksstaat,  makes  terribly  evident:  "We 
will  rather  serve  the  prince  of  the  underworld  than  the 
Lord  of  heaven;  and  if  revolution  is  an  'emanation  of 
Satan,'  then  shall  Satan  be  our  god.  Revolution  is  cer- 
tainly Satanic  in  its  nature,  if  Satan  be  the  symbol  of 
the  spirit  of  rebellion,  the  enemy  of  all  gods,  priests, 
kings,  of  all  the  representatives  of  authority,  and  the 
whole  machinery  of  law  and  government."  The  follow- 
ing, too,  from  an  anarchist  organ,  will  come  as  a  shock 
to  those  who  live  sheltered  from  contact  with  the  non- 
Christian  world :  "God  and  Christ  are  to  blame  that  the 
people  still  languish  in  bondage.  We  look  upon  God  as 
the  greatest  evil  in  the  world;  and  therefore  we  declare 
war  against  God.  War  against  God  and  Christ!  War 
against  all  despots  in  heaven  and  earth !" 

But  the  prophet  and  psalmist  says,  "He  that  sitteth 


Materialism  323 

in  the  heavens  shall  laugh;  the  Lord  shall  have  them  in 
derision."    (Ps.  ii,  4.)     Let  us  do  likewise  with  all  infi- 
delity, trusting  in  the  strength  of  our  God;  for  with  all 
its  presumption  and  arrogance  it  is  but  a  poor  wight, 
which,  on  closer  scrutiny,  fills  us  with  pity,  not  fear. 
Look  it  fearlessly  in  the  face.     You  will  soon  observe 
its  lack  of  confidence.     Instead  of  fearing  his  scorn  and 
ridicule,  turn  the  point  of  the  spear,  and  ask  the  infidel 
what  he  knows,  what  he  believes,  what  he  hopes.     Do 
not  be  led  away  by  stock  phrases  as :  "Of  course,  no  one 
nowadays   believes    such    things."      ''Those    ideas    are 
things  of  the  past."    "Science  has  long  since  done  away 
with  those  antiquated  notions,"  and  various  Hke  cheap 
and  untrue  sayings.    Attack  him  boldly,  and  demand  a 
candid  exposition  of  his  views  and  beliefs.     You  will 
very  soon  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "Unbelief  knows 
nothing."    It  pulls  down,  but  builds  not  again;  it  denies, 
but  does  not  afBrm;  it  takes,  but  does  not  give;  it  ridi- 
cules, but  does  not  prove.    It  is  a  negation,  which  owes 
its  very  existence  to  the  truth  which  it  denies.     The 
world  and  itself  remain  to  it  riddles  incapable  of  solu- 
tion, things  whose  object  it  knows  not.     When  a  man 
like  Schleiden,  who  is,  in  other  respects,   an  idealist, 
writes,  "The  universe  is  a  machine,  a  concourse  of  atoms, 
continually  in  motion;  we  are  at  our  wits'  end  when  it 
comes  to  explaining  the  essential  nature  of  matter  and 
force  mechanically,  and  referring  it  to  a  necessity"  (Das 
Meer,  p.  16),  it  is  simply  confessing  in  other  words  that 
we  do  not  know  whence  this  machine  comes,  nor  why, 
how,  and  wherefore  it  works.     The  unbeliever  can  not 
say  enough  in  praise  of  progress,  and  at  the  same  time 
teaches  that  the  universe,  and  all  that  is  therein,  will  one 


324  Science  and  Christianity 

day  congeal  in  everlasting  darkness.  He  who  shrugs 
his  shoulders  at  Christian  dogmas  sets  up  unprovable 
dogmas  on  the  non-existence  of  God,  of  the  eternity  of 
matter  and  force,  and  teaches  at  the  same  time  that 
they  do  not  exist.  He  scorns  the  notion  of  miracles, 
yet  believes  in  a  world  which  originated  of  itself,  with- 
out knowing  why;  in  an  unconscious  substance  which 
generated  consciousness;  in  a  primordial  germ,  which 
created  itself.  He  denies  the  soul  in  man,  and  believes 
in  its  existence  in  the  atom  and  the  molecule,  teaches 
the  eternity  of  matter  and  the  non-existence  of  time  as 
such,  the  eternal  duration  of  the  world  and  its  evolu- 
tion still  in  its  first  stages.  It  believes  in  the  primal  self- 
origin  of  life,  and  denies  spontaneous  generation  in  the 
present;  it  demands  the  greatest  veneration  for  science, 
and  disputes  the  existence  of  absolute  truth;  it  preaches 
the  logical  necessity  and  utility  of  the  world-process  and 
the  absurdity  of  religion;  the  perfect  justice  of  eternal 
matter,  without  any  future  system  of  reward  and  pun- 
ishment; a  moral  order  without  an  abiding  principle  of 
righteousness,  guilt  without  God,  and  expiation  without 
the  immortality  of  the  soul.  His  system  is  a  chaos  of 
contradictions.  No  wonder,  considering  that  his  gods 
are  deaf  and  dumb,  unconscious  matter,  and  blind,  fool- 
ish chance. 

And  a  chaos  of  inconsistencies  is  the  life  of  the  man 
who  gives  it  more  or  less  allegiance.  He  halts  between 
modern  advanced  thought  and  traditional  ecclesiastical 
forms,  which  he  has  not  the  courage  to  throw  over- 
board; in  his  heart  believes  neither  in  Christ  nor  in 
the  gospel,  and  still  calls  himself  an  evangelical  Chris- 
tian.    He  talks,  on  tombstones,  of  ''a  better  land,"  **a 


Materialism  325 

sweet  and  blessed  country,"  his  relatives  are  "not  lost, 
but  gone  before,"  and  yet  he  is  horribly  afraid  of  death. 
He  extols  ''free  thought,"  and  yet  slavishly  truckles  to 
every  celebrity  and  every  intellectual  fashion  of  the 
hour,  to  social  etiquette  and  public  opinion.  He  lauds 
simplicity,  and  loves  show;  praises  contentment,  and 
can  never  amass  sufficient  wealth.  He  talks  largely  of 
character  and  culture,  and  runs  after  any  novelty  or 
any  form  of  amusement,  however  foolish,  to  fill  the  void 
in  his  enlightened  soul,  which  no  longer  either  believes 
or  hopes  anything.  His  life  is  a  perpetual  contradic- 
tion, a  constant  lie.  Yet  there  are  moments  when,  in 
the  depths  of  his  being,  the  poor  soul  sighs  and  would 
fain  be  a  partaker  of  life  everlasting  and  eternal  bliss. 


The  Christianas  view  of  life  and  Nature  shows  itself, 
on  close  and  unprejudiced  examination,  more  natural, 
practical,  true,  and  satisfying  than  the  unchristian  and 
anti-Christian  beliefs  of  a  thoughtless  and  prejudiced 
multitude.  The  Christian  religion  is,  at  the  same  time, 
the  truest  and  most  scientific  philosophy,  because  the 
answers  which  the  Bible  supplies  to  the  problems  of 
existence  accord  most  satisfactorily  with  facts.  While 
among  non-Christians,  taking  mankind  from  Pole  to 
Pole,  hardly  one  in  a  thousand  concerns  himself  seriously 
with  the  problems  of  life,  and  by  far  the  greatest  number 
know  no  other  aim  than  gain  and  enjoyment,  in  our 
Lord's  words,  "What  shall  we  eat?  or,  What  shall  we 
drink?  or.  Wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed?"  (for  after 
all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek),  every  true  Chris- 


326  Science  and  Christianity 

tian  is  consciously  or  unconsciously  a  true  philosopher, 
whose  life-task  consists,  on  the  one  hand,  in  comparing 
and  bringing  those  divine  answers,  day  by  day,  into 
agreement  with  the  life  within  and  around  him,  by  which 
truly  philosophic  study  he  grows  and  increases  in  the 
inner  man;  on  the  other  hand,  in  endeavoring  with  the 
same  earnestness  to  bring  his  every  word,  thought,  and 
deed  into  conformity  with  his  beliefs,  which  proceeding 
is  exactly  what  Plato  requires  of  a  true  philosopher. 
The  beholding  of  eternal  truth,  by  the  power  of  God, 
enables  him  to  ''have  a  right  judgment  in  all  things," 
and  to  perform  good  works;  and  by  a  reflex  action  the 
fruits  of  his  belief  bear  in  themselves  the  proof  that  the 
premises  from  which  they  started  are  true;  for  truth 
alone  produces  goodness. 

The  Christian  does  not  believe  in  opposition  to 
science  and  in  spite  of  science;  but  he  believes,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  knowledge,  that  the  science  of  faith  bet- 
ter explains  the  past  and  present  order  of  things,  and  is, 
for  that  reason,  truer  and  more  scientific  than  the  science 
of  unbelief. 


mwm 


